By IANS,
Ahmedabad : Several dams in Gujarat’s water starved Saurashtra region overflowed Thursday but there was little time to rejoice with many areas and arterial roads flooded and people marooned in their homes after following incessant rain.
Though there was some respite from the rain, the met office held out little hope predicting heavy rainfall for most districts in the state.
About 10,000 people have been evacuated from various villages in the most affected areas.
On Wednesday, the administration in Surendranagar district of Saurashtra had to send an SOS asking for boats and a rescue team.
“We had asked for four boats and two reached Wednesday evening. Two are still stuck on the way,” said District Collector J.D. Bhatt.
He said the areas of Lakhtar and Patadi had been been badly hit.
“We evacuated nearly 4,000 people yesterday. There has been no loss of life in the district,” Bhatt told IANS.
Surendranagar is one of the seven district of Saurashtra — the others being Rajkot, Amreli, Bhavnagar, Junagadh, Jamnagar and Porbandar.
Many dams in Surendranagar, Jamnagar and Amreli were overflowing and several stretches of major highways inundated.
According to officials, some villages near Rajkot city had to be evacuated and low lying areas in the districts were flooded as the gates of all the dams had been opened.
Rains and breaches in several areas of Rajkot region forced the Western Railway Wednesday to cancel six trains, divert four and terminate another four.
Gujarat has already received 87 cm of its annual rainfall of 97 cm — receiving 12 percent of its annual seasonal average rainfall in the last three days. It had received 70 percent of its annual rainfall by last week and the heavy rainfall from Sep 14 onwards saw the state’s average go up.
Water levels in the dams have risen to 63 percent of storage capacity. Of the 193 dams, 57 are full and 20 have between 80-99 percent water, according to Gujarat State Disaster Management (GSDMA) sources.
Saurashtra has received 43 percent water in its dams, but 72 percent of its dams are full. Though Kutch is still crying for rain, the bounty may have come at a price with the heavy rains threatening life and livelihoods.
Chief Minister Narendra Modi had told mediapersons as he came out of Jagannath temple here in July: “I prayed for plenty of rains and prosperity of the state.”