Orissa steps up relief efforts

By Prafulla Das

BHUBANESWAR, JULY 26. The flood situation in Jajpur and Kendrapara districts of Orissa continues to be critical even as the water level has started falling in Brahmani and its tributary, Kharasrota.

The Revenue Department officials today expressed the hope that the situation would improve in four or five days even as a large number of villages in the two districts and other coastal areas continued to remain cut-off from all sides.

The water level of Brahmani at Jenapur gauge station was 22.64 m, against the danger level of 23 m at 3 p.m. today, the State Chief Secretary, Mr. D.P. Bagchi, said. The level at Rengali reservoir, upstream of Jenapur, was 122.54 m against the storage capacity of 123.50 m.

The situation in the Mahanadi basin is slowly improving. The volume of water flowing into the river is decreasing as there has not been heavy rains in the catchment area during the past few days. But, the situation may deteriorate again if heavy rain occurs over Orissa and Chhatisgarh during the next couple of days.

On its part, the State Government has intensified relief operations in the flood-hit areas in the coastal belt as well as in the interior districts of Deogarh, Jharsuguda and Angul.

Air-dropping of food packets continues in Cuttack, Puri, Jajpur, Kendrapara, Jagatsinghpur, Angul and Deogarh districts. A total of 458 MT of food material had been air- dropped by Wednesday by carrying out 198 sorties.

The Army operation for rescue and relief is continuing in the worst-hit pockets and various types of boats numbering 1,312 have been pressed into service. Free kitchen arrangements have been made in 530 centres in Jajpur, Kendrapara, Jagatsinghpur, Cuttack, Puri, Nayagarh, Khurda, Jharsuguda, Angul and Deogarh districts covering 3.5 lakh beneficiaries.

In order to check the incidence of water-borne diseases, the Government has sent 100 doctors, 17 medical students and 41 para- medical workers to the affected regions.

However, the possibility of diarrhoea and other ailments assuming epidemic proportions is not being ruled out. The number of diarrhoea cases has already increased to 7,408 from 1,740 cases which had been reported till Saturday last.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : National
Previous : Security tightened for Jaswant's son
Next     : Charge, counter-charge in Lucknow