flood water in river Mahanadi The state government on Wednesday said that a large number of villages in 10 different districts in the coastal region of Odisha have been flooded, while over two lakh people are estimated to be affected.
As the flood waters reached the coastal area, several river and canal embankments broke and hundreds of people suddenly found themselves submerged in the flood waters.
“About 2 lakh people in 1366 villages of 369 gram panchayats in 50 blocks and nine urban local bodies in 10 districts have also been affected. Similarly, 1.2 lakh people have been submerged in flood waters in 237 villages,” said Special Relief Commissioner PK Jena.
Hundreds of houses have been damaged, while thousands of acres of kharif crop have gone into sea of water. There is no report of any casualty due to the ongoing floods in the state.
The districts that have been hit by the floods include Cuttack, Khordha, Puri, Kendrapara, Jagatsinghpur, Boudh, Sambalpur and Angul. Several low-lying areas of the capital Bhubaneswar have been submerged in flood waters. Roads were cut in Puri, Cuttack and Khordha districts.
The present reservoir level at Hirakud was measured as 626.56 feet against the full reservoir level of 630 feet. Around 5.97 lakh cusecs of water was entering the reservoir while 6.79 cusecs of water was being released through 40 gates.
The peak flood waters at Mundali, which is said to be the last major river gauging station, had already crossed and the water level was slowly coming down. The state government is providing cooked food at more than 100 different places.
Odisha is expecting heavy rains over all parts of the state, especially in the North Odisha region under the influence of a low pressure area which is likely to form by August 19. The SRC, however, said that they were not expecting a major flood in Baitarni and Brahmani. river system during that time.