By IANS,
Lucknow : The toll on account of the ongoing rain and accompanying floods in Uttar Pradesh Friday swelled to 785, an official said. The damage due to the disaster is estimated around Rs.2.8 billion.
While 106 died due to drowning, the rest died in house collapses due to incessant rains.
According to Uttar Pradesh relief commissioner G.K. Tandon, who was also in-charge of disaster management: “The damage on account of floods and rain since the monsoon broke out June 1 was estimated at about Rs.2.8 billion.”
As many as 2.2 million people living across 21 of UP’s 70 districts were facing the fury of floods with almost every major river running through the state in spate. These included the Ganga, Yamuna, Ghaghra, Rapti, Sharda and Gomti.
The vast poverty-ridden rural expanse of eastern Uttar Pradesh was the worst hit essentially on account of absence of any permanent flood protection measures, even though this is a perennial feature in the region.
In the state capital, certain posh areas were inundated on account of backflow of the drains as the Gomti rose, spread its waters into a large number of rural and semi-urban pockets in the vicinity.
With the deluge threatened residences of politicians and bureaucrats and flood waters spread into Lucknow’s Gomti Nagar, local authorities pumped in all resources to extend the river embankment by more than 300 metres within a span of 48 hours to keep the area safe.
“However, we are still keeping our fingers crossed, and if the rain god continues to be kind on us, perhaps we will be able to tide over the crisis here”, Lucknow dDistrict Magistrate Chandra Bhanu said.