Devastating flood rendered lakhs homeless, 50 dead in Orissa
By Deepak Kumar Rath

Hapless people are facing centre’s apathetic attitude of not announcing flood a national calamity.

If Koshi river is responsible for the flood calamity in Bihar, then the Mahanadi is responsible for the devastating flood in Orissa. After 26 long years, the flood situation is very grim this year. Since 1982, the people of Orissa had not witnessed such a flood fury. Notwithstanding subsiding water level in rivers including the Mahanadi, gushing waters from over 100 breaches continued to submerge fresh areas engulfing village after village. About 46 flood-gates were opened to disburse the water of Mahanadi river. The misery does not end here, huge waters of Tel river along with branch rivers and heavy rains with low pressure has resulted in an abnormal life for the people of Orissa. The step-motherly attitude of the UPA government at the centre has been exposed by not declaring the current devastating flood as a natural calamity. When the Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik demanded 1500 crore from the National Calamity Fund, the union home minister announced merely 500 crore, which is in no way matching to the needs of the flood situation.

Heavy rains derailed flood relief efforts in Orissa, compounding misery of lakhs of victims as toll mounted to 50 with 11 fresh casualties reported from some places, while four persons went missing. 18 of the 30 districts are badly hit with heavy loss of human lives, animals and agricultural lands. Communication system is collapsed in districts like Sambalpur, Angul, Bolangir, Kalahandi, Subarnapur, Boudh, Nayagarh, Cuttack, Kendrapara, Jagatsinghpur, Jajpur, Puri and Khurda. The flood has affected 40 lakh people, 5772 villages, 21 municipal corporations, 129 blocks in which one lakh 26 thousand 319 houses are washed away. Four lakh 41 thousand 489 hectares agricultural field are destroyed, 194 cattle lives lost and 12 lakh 66 thousand 805 cattles are badly affected. Naval teams and personnel of the central para-military forces gave momentum to hitherto tardy relief and rescue operations. But the entire exercise still remained inadequate in view of limited manpower and inadequate number of boats, they said.

As many as 3,76,672 people have been evacuated to safer places in the flood-affected areas so far with the help of air force choppers and 1,513 boats, said state Revenue Minister Shri Manmohan Samal while talking to Organiser on the phone. When asked about any death due to water-borne diseases or due to want of medical help, Shri Samal said, “Nobody has died of water-borne diseases during the flood and it has not taken any epidemic form. The cases reported are sporadic.” The government has arranged 272 medical teams to meet the present challenge, he said. Shri Samal added that relief operations have been stepped up and relief and rescue officials have reached all the 827 villages, which were marooned.