Nepal rivers flood hundreds of UP villages

Hundreds of villages and towns along the Indo-Nepal border in Uttar Pradesh were either submerged or marooned on account of gushing waters from Himalayan rivers that flow into UP from Nepal.

Incessant rain all along the Himalayan foothills along the Indo-Nepal border compounded the plight of the people, said a government official.

Even as flood was a perennial menace for a large population living along the border, what made it worse this time, was the washing away of a huge chunk of an embankment along the Ghaghra River in Barabanki district.

The breach led to nearly washing away of at least three dozen villages in Barabanki and its adjoining Gonda district over the past 24 hours.

"There was no loss of human life on account of the sudden flooding," an official claimed.

"At least 300,000 people were affected by the  floods in parts of Barabanki, Gonda, Sitapur, Balrampur and Lakhimpur-Kheri districts where more than 2,000 hectares of agricultural land was already badly affected by the flood waters", said an official spokesman.

Attributing part of the damage to "poor maintenance of the embankment built barely five years ago" he added, "The government has ordered suspension of the concerned chief engineer and four of his subordinate engineers who were directly responsible for raising the embankment."

"Meanwhile, efforts were being undertaken on a war footing to evacuate the affected people from flood-ravaged villages to safer areas," he added.

According to him, "Provincial Armed Police jawans have been on the job since Monday evening to look for people still stranded in marooned villages, while districts magistrates of the affected districts have been told to sound a round-the-clock alert and also personally supervise the relief operations."

With the MeT department predicting a heavier downpour over the next 24 hours, the situation was likely to worsen as more areas were bound to face the fury of the running waters.

Rains have also disrupted normal life in urban areas including the state capital where several localities in the old city were grappling with knee-deep water and overflowing sewage and drain water had even entered inside their homes.

"We have installed pumps to relieve the people of the water logging but uninterrupted rain has made out task difficult", pleaded additional municipal commissioner Rajeshwar Singh.