With a large part of Indian agriculture dependent on a good monsoon, rains are often treated as a good omen but incessant rainfall has already affected lakhs of lives with damage to public and private property being reported around the country from West Bengal to Gujarat. This comes on the heels of an approaching cyclonic storm Komen from the Bay of Bengal accompanied with heavier rains is expected to hit the south eastern coast in the next 24 hours.

 

 

The coasts of West Bengal and Odisha are expected to be the worst affected even as the state government in Bengal has already sounded an high alert. The states are already dealing with a flood-like situation in many districts as 800 were left homeless the previous day after a cyclone ripped through three districts in Bengal.

Meanwhile, over 2.5 lakh people have already been affected by widespread floods in Odisha owing to heavy rainfall as thousands of acres of agricultural land was submerged. So far, people in 282 villages have been affected as hundreds were uprooted from their homes across five districts of Keonjhar, Jajpur, Mayurbhanj, Balasore and Bhadrak.

Things aren’t well at the western side of the country either as floods in Gujarat have already claimed at least 22 lives and the state had to rope in the Indian Air Force to assist with relief efforts even as the heavy downpour continues.

 

 

"Rescue operation is going on in full swing and around 2,500 people were shifted to safer places from Banaskantha, Patan, Mehsana districts of north Gujarat,” state disaster control officer TB Patel told PTI. “Around 100 people were also shifted to safer areas in Surat district of south Gujarat," Patel said.



Moreover, 1000 cattle died due to floods and power supply was affected in many parts of the Banaskantha district among other areas and flood situation prevailed in parts of Jharkand as well.

In Rajasthan, a flood-like situation continues to haunt the national disaster management authority which has kept its forces ready on high-alert in case of an emergency situation. So far, over 50 people have been rescued as three National Disaster Relief Force teams and 15 motorboats have been working on the rescue and relief effort.

 



"The rains have been unprecedented,” Gulab Chand Katariya, state Disaster Relief Management Minister was quoted as saying by NDTV. “We have reports of five people being swept away due to flood waters, rescue operations are being carried out by the NDRF teams in co-ordination with the district administration and police,” he added.