Karnataka, Maharashtra struggle with rains, floods

TIL Desk/National/New Delhi/ Heavy rains battered large swathes of the country and the situation remained grim in flood-hit parts of Karnataka and Maharashtra, where 2.5 lakh have been evacuated, while several rivers were in spate in Andhra Pradesh. Sixteen deaths in rain and flood-related incidents have been reported from western Maharashtra in the last seven days, while the toll in Karnataka rose to five since Sunday and nearly 26,000 people have been evacuated.

Floodgates were opened in the dams in Maharashtra and barrages and reservoirs in Karnataka, where road and rail links remain hit by incessant monsoon rains. Nearly 2.5 lakh people have been evacuated in Sangli, Kolhapur and Pune, Divisional Commissioner Deepak Mhaisekar said. He warned people against travelling on the Mumbai-Bengaluru national highway.

Teams of the Territorial Army, the Navy and the National Disaster Response Force are conducting rescue operations in Kolhapur and Sangli and six more NDRF teams will be airlifted to Kolhapur by Wednesday evening, he said. Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis reviewed the flood situation at a meeting in Mumbai. He told reporters later that the state received 104 pc of average rain during June-August period, most of it in western Maharashtra and Konkan.