Rescue operations for thousands of people stranded in floods across Gujarat are underway even as weather forecasts have raised an alert about another day of heavy rainfall in north Gujarat and southern Rajasthan on Monday.
In the past three days, with several districts in the state receiving between two and eight inches of rainfall, the Gujarat government has evacuated at least 7,000 people from flood-hit regions. The rescue operations have been conducted jointly by the State and National Disaster Response Forces, the Indian army and the air force.
However, at least three people are reported to have died in the deluge and many more citizens continue to be stranded in Surendranagar, Rajkot, Morbi, Banaskantha, Amreli and other districts. With at least 10 highways and 65 roads damaged, Monday’s local news headlines reported several instances of collapsed buildings and overflowing lakes, and high-alerts have been issued around many dams expected to overflow.
At least one person reportedly died in Ahmedabad on Monday morning after a three-storey building collapsed in the city, and three people were injured.
Meanwhile, a report in Gujarat Samachar claimed that flooding in Banaskantha district’s Banas river near Deesa city has left at least 100 people stranded, and locals have begun rescue operations.
Surendranagar district in Gujarat’s Saurashtra region had been particularly battered by rains for the past three days, and Monday’s headlines reported that people in Limbdi taluka remain stranded despite a gradual receding of the flood waters:
In Surendranagar city, schools and marketplaces re-opened this morning despite continued rain. “Some people are sending their children to school even though the streets are still flooded with 1.5 feet of water, but children from rural areas cannot come because they are completely cut off from the town,” said Natu Parmar, a social activist from Surendranagar.
Because of landslides, flooding and road blocks, Parmar has been unable to access any of his relatives in the rural parts of the district, particularly in Limbdi taluka. “They have not had electricity for three days so even their phones are now dead,” said Parmar. “The last I heard from my brother yesterday was that our house in the village has collapsed.”
Social media users, meanwhile, shared several videos and photos of the havoc wreaked by the Gujarat floods in the past three days and the relief operations underway across the state.
This is the second time in the past ten days that Gujarat has been hit by floods. Last week, at least 11 people were killed and more than 2000 were rescued when heavy rains triggered floods in five districts.
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