With Cauvery in spate carrying 2.20 lakh cusecs, more houses located in high altitude areas from Bhavani to Kodumudi were flooded on Saturday in Erode. Houses in Bhavani, Karungalpalayam and Kodumudi were flooded and families were moved to safer locations.
As many as 2,423 people belonging to 783 families have been accommodated in 16 relief camps that have been set up in Pallipalayam, Kumarapalayam and Jedarpalayam areas.
Ministers P. Thangamani (Electricity) and V. Saroja (Social Welfare) and Ka. Balachandran, monitoring officer for Namakkal district, stayed put in Pallipalayam and Kumarapalayam — two villages that have been worst affected by the floods — for the third consecutive day on Saturday and monitored the relief operations.
In Kodumudi, water from the Pugaluran Canal continued to flood houses even as more people were evacuated and moved to safer locations. A total of 7,832 people continue to be at the flood relief camps in the district.
As the fury of rainfall reduced from Saturday morning, stagnant water from residential areas in Valparai started receding. Though more than 100 people from about 43 families continued to stay in the relief camps, many people could be seen cleaning their houses filled with mud and silt.
As minor landslips continued at the ninth hairpin bend on the Pollachi-Valparai road, heavy vehicles were not allowed further. As a result, transport of essential items including vegetables, milk and fuel to Valparai and other areas in the hills remained disrupted. Major dams in Coimbatore and Pollachi — Sholayar, Parambikulam, Aliyar, Siruvani and Pilloor — have almost filled up and the excess water is being let into the rivers.
Inflow at 1.80L cusecs
With no let-up in the inflow, the discharge from the Stanley Reservoir at Mettur into Cauvery was stepped up to 2.05 lakh cusecs (cubic feet per second)at 7 p.m. on Saturday. The inflow was 1.72 lakh cusecs in the morning and it rose to 1.80 lakh cusecs in the evening. The discharge, which stood at 1.75 lakh cusecs in the morning, was stepped up to 1.95 lakh cusecs by 4 p.m.
Meanwhile, the wedding hall converted into a temporary relief camp continued to be abuzz with activity with the administration providing food for the occupants of a few houses inundated in Nadarkottai and Nagercoil hamlets in Hogenakkal.
( With inputs from P.V. Srividya in Dharmapuri, Syed Muthahar Saqaf in Salem, S.P. Saravanan in Erode and R. Arivanantham in Coimbatore)
