PUNJAB SUBMERGED

Lily

B.R
Staff member
Anandpur Sahib August 14:
It rained and rained destruction, with death giving company after almost 20 years in Punjab with Saura village in Ropar flooded, three persons getting killed in 15 incidents of house collapse in Tarn Taran and Amritsar districts and sewage entering some homes in Phagwara, Jalandhar and Hoshiarpur. So devastative were the rains that chief minister Parkash Singh Badal had to call an emergency meeting late in the evening and release more than Rs 10 crore in this regard.
Most of the 500 residents of this village adjoining Himachal are trapped in the flood with no rescue operation appearing feasible till the filing of the report late in the evening. The entire Ropar district administration, led by deputy commissioner B Purushartha, reached the spot for arranging rescue and relief. Karam Singh, Hari Kishan, Subash Chand and Tilak Chand, who tried to rescue those trapped that despite having vehicles they could do little. An alert had been sounded in the nearby villages. The DC said the gushing water was making it difficult to use rescue boats.
In Amritsar and Tarn Taran districts, Bablu (5) and Rajrani (35) died in a house collapse while Balwinder Singh (35) of Ubokae village was killed in another one. Heavy rains caused collapse of 15 houses in the two districts. A major portion of a road next to an under-construction shopping mall caved in Amritsar, leading to cracks in nearby houses.
Residents had to be evacuated while a couple of vehicles were damaged during the rainfall (135 mm), highest in the past 35 years in the district. Villages around Adampur in Jalandhar district were submerged as a drain in the area failed to contain the flow of Nasrala choe. Malkiat Singh, a resident of the area, said Kadiana village was submerged in 4-5 feet of water while Arjanwal village on Adampur-Jalandhar road, along with some localities of Adampur, was under 2-3 feet water.
In Phagwara, 192 mm rainfall was recorded, a maximum after 20 years (it was recorded 300 mm over 24 hours in 1988 when there were statewide floods). Even the power station on Hoshiarpur road was inundated and PSEB officials had to cut off the supply at around 10 am. PSEB executive engineer Sanjiv Kumar said the sewage also entered the power station and some houses in Phagwara, Hoshiarpur and Jalandhar. Apart from the houses, shops and other commercial establishments on Gaushala road and other adjoining areas in the old city were also submerged.
 
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