Monsoon woes: 52 stranded villagers rescued in Haryana

Fifty-two people, including 15 children, stranded on a tract of land in Haryana's Yamunanagar district due to floods triggered by heavy rains, were rescued on Monday.

Additional Chief Secretary, Revenue and Disaster Management, Krishna Mohan said in Chandigarh that the villagers were rescued by the National Disaster Management Authority and army personnel today morning with help from the civil administration.

The stranded villagers were rescued by using boats.

Heavy overnight rains and rising water level in the Yamuna River had hampered rescue operations earlier.

The rains had led to an alarming increase in the water level of Yamuna, even as over 7 lakh cusecs water was flowing through the Hathni Kund barrage, prompting authorities to sound a high alert in the neighbouring districts of Karnal, Panipat and Sonipat.

Mohan said the state government had immediately taken steps to rescue the 52 residents of village Lapra, who were stranded since Sunday morning.

The villagers, who used to cultivate musk melons and water melons on that piece of land, were trapped as the water level of river Yamuna rose sharply.

The river was flooded following torrential rains in catchment areas, the additional chief secretary said.

The state government had also sought the services of the Indian Air Force to rescue the trapped villagers, but in view of the bad weather, they could not operate on Sunday night.

Official sources said that several low-lying villages in the district were flooded after the Yamuna river received heavy rainfall in its catchment areas.

Irrigation authorities had opened the gates at the Hathnikund barrage, releasing additional water into the Yamuna river, whose water had entered agricultural fields in a number of villages in the Bilaspur segment.

While the southwest monsoon entered Haryana and neighbouring Punjab and Chandigarh on Sunday, heavy pre-monsoon showers have been lashing the region for the past 4-5 days.