JOIN USHeavy rain lashes UP; six dead
Flood threat looms large in Uttar Pradesh as rain continued to lash the state forcing the prime minister to cancel third visit to his constituency. Six people were reported dead.
“We have received a telephonic communique from the Prime Minister’s Office regarding cancellation of his visit,” Divisional Commissioner R M Srivastava told PTI.
It has been raining heavily since Saturday and the entire DLW ground where the prime minister was scheduled to address the public meeting and launch a few projects is heavily waterlogged. It would have been Modi’s third visit to his consistuency. Four people died when their house collapsed in Basti district in the state on Sunday while two people were killed in a similar incident in Agra district, sources here said.
Several parts of the state have been having incessant downpour for the past two days, sources said, adding that the rivers in the eastern as well as the central parts of the state have been rising.
The Sharda river was flowing 80 centimetres above the danger mark in Lakhimpur-Kheri district inundating large tracts of land and disrupting vehicular traffic at several places in the district.
Sarayu river was also rising at Ayodhya, according to the sources. A flood alert had already been sounded and the officials have been asked to launch relief and rescue operations in the flood affected areas, sources added.
With the intensification of Southwest monsoon, reservoirs including the Mettur dam and Mullaperiyar reservoir in Tamil Nadu are brimming and the the water inflow continues to rise day-by-day even as the TN government has issued the flood alert in rain-affected areas.
“Due to heavy rain in Karnataka, the inflow in Mettur dam has increased in the last few days. It is expected to cross 90 feet in few days against its total capacity of 120 feet,” a senior official from PWD-Water Resources Organisation said here.
Most of the reservoirs located close to or in the Western Ghats, including Mullaperiyar, Vaigai, Sholayar and Aliyar, are recording a good inflow. There is a steady rise in water storage in Manimuthar dam, built across Tamirabarani river, in Tirunelveli.