New Delhi, July 8: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday spoke with the chief ministers of Kerala, Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Jammu and Kashmir to take stock of the situation arising from heavy rains there and assured them of all possible assistance from the Centre, officials said.
The home minister called Kerala Chief Minister VD Satheesan, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel and Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, they said.
During the separate phone conversations, Shah assured them of all possible assistance from the Centre in dealing with the rain-related situation, they said.
Speaking to Satheesan, the home minister expressed satisfaction over the rescue and relief operations carried out by the Kerala government following the Wayanad tragedy, in which three people were killed after a rain-soaked mound of excavated earth collapsed at the site of a multi-crore tunnel project in Meppadi panchayat on Tuesday.
Shah also asked the chief minister to order a high-level inquiry into the incident.
Satheesan informed him that the state cabinet, which met earlier in the day, had already decided to conduct an inquiry.
Ten people were injured, and five remained missing in the incident, which has been described as a “man-made disaster”.
In Maharashtra, the capital Mumbai witnessed torrential rain on Wednesday, delaying local train services and causing inconvenience to office-goers. The city was battered by rain over the weekend and got a brief respite on Tuesday.
Long-distance train services towards Gujarat remained disrupted due to waterlogging on the Vasai-Virar section in neighbouring Palghar district and at several locations in south Gujarat. Operations on the Mumbai-Pune route were also yet to be fully restored following landslides in the Bhor Ghat section on Monday.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has forecast intermittent light to moderate rainfall in Mumbai and the suburbs during the day.
In neighbouring Gujarat, the southern part received “extremely heavy” rainfall on Tuesday, with the worst affected being Surat district, where five people died in rain-related incidents, while 2,100 people were shifted from flooded areas to safe locations, officials said. (PTI)
