Five rescue personnel – three firefighters and two NDRF men – who were heading towards the Virupapur Gaddi (island) in Koppal district in a rubber boat to bring the stranded people to safer place were washed away in the roaring river as their boat toppled in the middle of the river after it collided with a tree on Monday.
While one of them has managed to swim and reach the bank at Hanumanahalli, the remaining four were rescued using army chopper.
Tungabhadra recedes
As Tungabhadra started receding owing to the dwindled rainfall at its catchment area in Sahyadri range and Malnad region and the Tungabhadra Reservoir at Munirabad in Koppal district resultantly seeing diminished inflow, the discharge from the dam on was reduced from 2.50 lakh cusec on Sunday to 2.06 lakh cusec on Monday morning.
As per the authorities in the Department of Water Resources, all the 33 floodgates in the reservoir remained partially opened on Monday morning as well – 28 gates were raised for 5.5 feet to discharge 7141 cusec water from each gate and 5 gates were opened one foot to release 1399 cusec water from each gate.
300 people, including foreigners rescued
Taking advantage of the reduced discharge from the reservoir, NDRF teams intensified the rescue operations in World Heritage Site of Hampi and surrounding areas. As per the information provided by the district administration, as many as 300 people, including 11 German, 5 French, one Swiss and one American tourists, were stranded in Virupapur Gaddi near Hampi. In the first phase, the NDRF team brought five foreign tourists out of the island using sophisticated boats. The rescue operation was continuing to shift the remaining people from the island.
It was learnt that only one boat was available for rescuing around three hundred people stranded in Virupapur Gaddi. After rescuing five tourists in the first trip, the personnel were moving towards the island for the second one when their boat toppled and washed away in the current.
Alerts ignored
Alerted by the downpour at the Tungabhadra catchment area in the Western Ghats and Malnad region for the last one week, Deputy Commissioner of Koppal P Sunil Kumar had put the district administrative apparatus on the task of alerting the people along the riverbanks downstream of the dam. He even used traditional methods such as beating drums and announcing the alerts at Virupapur Gaddi continuously for the last five days requesting the tourists to go out of the island at the earliest possible. Yet, the people, including the foreign and domestic tourists, who were apparently well aware of the imminent floods, remained in the danger zones such as Virupapur Gaddi. Most of the tourists, who expected the floods, had parked their vehicles far away from the river bank and then entered the danger zone.
The heavy discharge of water from the reservoir on Sunday created havoc in Kampli fort area as the water gushed into the houses in the Fishermen’s Colony in Ward No. 13. Even the relief centre that was opened on Sunday to help the flood victims with food and essential material itself inundated on Sunday night itself. Most of the people in Kampli Fort area have either taken shelter in relief centre or gone to relatives places as their houses were completely flooded.
