New Delhi/Patna/Lucknow: As many as 48 people died in rain-related incidents, majority of them in Uttar Pradesh, while incessant rainfall in Bihar, where an alert has been sounded, left the streets of state capital Patna and other areas waterlogged and residences of at least two ministers marooned.
As many as 35 people lost their lives in Uttar Pradesh since Friday, the state government said. While 25 of them died on Saturday, 10 lost their lives on Friday.
The meteorological department said heavy rain is very likely to occur at isolated places over eastern UP on Sunday. In neighbouring Uttarakhand, six pilgrims from Punjab, who were on their way to the Himalayan shrine of Hemkund Sahib, were killed when a huge rock fell on their vehicle in Tehri district following a landslip triggered by heavy rains, officials said. Also, three deaths each were reported from Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, while one person died in Jammu and Kashmir. In Bihar, heavy rains in several parts of the state since Friday have thrown normal life out of gear affecting rail traffic, healthcare facilities and schools.
The residences of Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi, Road Construction Minister Nand Kishore Yadav and BJP MP Rajiv Pratap Rudy resembled marooned islands. The weather department has forecast heavy rainfall for the city till September 30. The Patna district administration has ordered closure of all schools till Tuesday. Nalanda Medical College Hospital premises, the second largest healthcare facility in Patna, was waterlogged as also that of the Gardanibagh hospital.
“Localities like Rajendra Nagar and S K Puri are the worst affected,” District Magistrate Kumar Ravi told reporters.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar reviewed the situation in a video conference meeting with officials who informed him that the state received an average rainfall of 50 mm since Friday with districts like Vaishali and Nawada recording more than 200 mm.
The district magistrate said a contingent of NDRF and SDRF personnel was pressed into service to rescue residents from the areas alarmingly waterlogged.
East Central Railway officials said rail traffic was suspended on the Darbhanga-Samastipur section in the morning as tracks at some places got inundated due to heavy rain, leaving at least three trains stranded.
The NDRF said 18 of its teams have been pressed into service in districts which have received heavy rainfall. In the desert state of Rajasthan, three students were killed when a wall of a government school collapsed after excessive rainfall in Udaipur district, police said.
The school, which is situated on the foothills, was waterlogged due to excessive rainfall on Friday night, the police said.
Meanwhile, three persons, including a police constable, were swept away in the strong currents of a swollen nullah in Seoni district of Madhya Pradesh, police said. The incident occurred on Ghansor-Kedarpur Road on Friday night. The three bodies were recovered about a kilometre away from the place of the incident.
Madhya Pradesh has been witnessing heavy rainfall over the last couple of weeks. In Jammu and Kashmir’s Samba district, a 22-year-old woman was killed after she was struck by lightning.
Heavy rains lashed wide parts of the Jammu province, causing waterlogging and traffic jams at many places in the city disrupting normal life. In Himachal Pradesh, parts of the state received light rainfall on Saturday which brought the maximum temperature down by two to three notches below the season’s average.
Mandi received the maximum rainfall at 36 mm in 24 hours lasting 5.30 pm on Saturday, followed by Kufri (28 mm), Salooni (25 mm), Kandaghat and Bakloh (22 mm each), Baijnath (19 mm), Solan (13 mm), Shimla (12.3 mm) and Manali (11 mm).
Meanwhile, River Krishna is in spate again following heavy rain in the upper catchment areas in Maharashtra and Karnataka.
Consequently, the crest gates of major dams that were already full to the brim in Andhra Pradesh had to be opened for the third time in the last couple of months to let out floodwater into the Bay of Bengal.
The India Meteorological Department on Saturday forecast heavy to very heavy rain in parts of north Gujarat and the state’s Saurashtra-Kutch belt over the weekend. (PTI)
