Flood-like situation in districts of Saurashtra region; NDRF teams deployed

Ahmedabad: A flood-like situation prevailed in several districts of Gujarat’s Saurashtra region as heavy rains continued to lash the state on Saturday, isolating villages and inundating low-lying areas, prompting rescue and relief operations and deployment of NDRF teams.

Dwarka taluka in Devbhumi district recorded 163 mm rainfall in 12 hours ending at 6 pm on Saturday, followed by Junagadh city and taluka (133 mm rainfall) and Patan-Veraval in Gir Somnath district, which received 117 mm rainfall, the State Emergency Operation Centre (SEOC) said.

Officials said 10 teams of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) have been deployed in the affected districts and rescue and relief operations were underway to shift stranded people from low-lying waterlogged areas to safer places.

Heavy rains have caused 16 reservoirs to overflow. Meanwhile, a warning has been issued for 36 reservoirs and 25 dams, including the Sardar Sarovar dam, which are 50 to 70 per cent full of their total capacity.

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) said exceptionally heavy rainfall occurred in Dwarka district of Saurashtra, and extremely heavy rainfall at isolated places in Junagadh and Porbandar.

A cyclonic circulation persisted over Saurashtra and Kutch extending up to 5.8 km above mean sea level and tilting southwestwards, the meteorological department said, forecasting heavy to very heavy rainfall along with extremely heavy rainfall in districts of Saurashtra region and south Gujarat till Tuesday morning.

Amid heavy rains, Union Labour Minister and Porbandar MP Mansukh Mandaviya reached his constituency to assess the situation and coordinate relief efforts.

The minister called a meeting to discuss measures being taken in areas affected by heavy rains and called for speeding up relief efforts.

Incessant heavy rains since Thursday have increased the water storage in the Sardar Sarovar dam beyond 55 per cent, the state government said.

In addition, another 206 reservoirs are filled to 37.87 percent of their storage capacity.