The toll due to heavy rain and subsequent floods in Maharashtra rose to 192, reported PTI on Tuesday, citing the state government.
Heavy rains have caused flooding and landslides in districts like Raigad, Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg, Satara, Sangli and Kolhapur. The India Meteorological Department has predicted that Konkan, Goa and ghat areas of central Maharashtra will receive rainfall over the next three days.
The most number of deaths were reported from Raigad district (95), followed by Satara (45), Ratnagiri (21), Thane (12), Kolhapur (seven), four in Mumbai, and two each in Sindhudurg, Akola, Pune and Wardha.
The state government said that 3,75,178 resident have been evacuated, with the highest number (2,06,619) rescued from Sangli district, followed by 1,50,365 from Kolhapur, reported The Indian Express. Overall, as many as 1,028 villages are battling the after-effects of heavy rain.
Eighteen rescue teams of the National Disaster Response Force and three teams of the armed forces have been deployed in the state.
The Indian Army has set up a central war room for coordination between the three services for ongoing flood relief operations.
The Army said that water level has been decreasing in rivers and connectivity has been partially restored in Kolhapur. “Flood relief columns have been de-requisitioned from Chiplun,” it said. “However, they are on standby for any contingencies.”
Meanwhile, the aftermath of the torrential rain also caused 313 fatalities among animals in the state, and 28,787 poultry died in Kolhapur, Sangli, Satara and Sindhudurg districts, reported The Indian Express.
Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar said a decision would be taken in the next few days on providing relief to those affected by the floods. Pawar, along with Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, has toured a few of the worst-affected districts.
Thackeray’s aerial survey to Satara district on Monday was cancelled as the poor weather made visibility difficult, reported The Times of India. The chief minister held a meeting about compensation to the victims and a final decision is expected on Wednesday.
Pawar travelled in a rescue boat to reach the victims in some areas during his visit on Monday. The deputy chief minister also spoke to the locals and promised assistance from the state government, according to PTI.
“When heavy rains started after July 22, there was enough storage capacity in dams in the Krishna river basin but heavy downpour in the pre-catchment areas of dams caused floods downstream,” Pawar said. “Around 16.5 TMC [one thousand million cubic feet] water was received in one day in the Koyna dam which has the storage capacity of 100 TMC.”
The deputy chief minister said that to prevent flooding in the future, the administration will focus on making the flood management system strong. Pawar said that human interference may not have been the cause of the landslides, and announced that the state government would appoint a panel of geological experts to examine the matter, The Times of India reported.
“The landslides have not occurred in zones prone to them,” he said. “There is no human interference in these areas.”
Aaditya Thackeray, the state’s environment minister, took note of the floods in an opinion piece for NDTV, and said that Maharashtra “has faced one of its worst climate change crises in the past few years.”
“Change in seasons, extremities in weather events, unpredictable natural disasters have been the norm for at least a decade,” Thackeray wrote. “For a country like India, it will not just be the hinterlands that will be affected, but cities too.”
Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari will also visit the flood-affected areas, including Raigad and Ratnagiri districts. Koshyari will also visit Taliye village where landslides occurred last week and Chiplun.
Meanwhile, the southwest monsoon also brought heavy rain to several states, including Karnataka, Delhi, Gujarat and West Bengal.
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