The high floods in Orissa`s coastal areas, which has affected a population of sixty lakh and claimed 45 lives so far, worsened on Saturday as 21 new breaches, which occured on Thursday night, inundating fresh areas.
The new breaches occurred as a huge volume of water in the Mahanadi reached the plains early today submerging new areas, according to official sources. Just over 14 lakh cusecs of water, much of it released from the Hirakud reservoir in Western Orissa about 40 hours earlier, passed the Naraj delta head in the wee hours of the day further complicating the situation, sources said. As a result, the flooded rivers, which were showing a receding trend till yesterday, rose again much above their danger levels. The situation was still critical in the delta and 60.74 lakh people have been affected in the coastal districts, Revenue Minister Biswabhushan Harichandan said. More than six lakh people were still marooned while the calamity had so far claimed 45 lives, without including the four persons swept away in Patkura block of Kendrapara district. Their fate was not known. "We actually expected about 15 lakh cusecs to pass the delta head, but mercifully for us it amounted to 14.08 lakh cusecs. But the floods had caused as many as 51 breaches, six of them on capital embankments," Harichandan said. Of these breaches, three each were on the left embankments of the Mahanadi and Devi rivers while of the rest 45 breaches, 27 occurred on agricultural embankments and 18 on test relief embankments, he said. Bureau Report