Balasore rivers in spate

BALASORE: Thousands of people of 50 villages in two northern blocks of Balasore district were affected by flash flood in the Subarnarekha and Jalaka rivers on Sunday.Both the rivers have been in spate for the last 24 hours.People have been evacuated to safer places. Officials were asked to keep a watch on the river embankments at vulnerable points. Electricity supply, vehicular movement and telephone services to many villages too have been snapped.The district administration apprehends a worse flood situation on Monday as the water level in the Subarnarekha is rising menacingly.Water level in the river at Rajghat was at 11.59 metre against the red mark of 10.36 on Sunday evening while the Jalaka river was flowing at 5.71 metre against the danger level of 5.5 metre.An emergency official said the Subarnarekha is rising at 0.03 metre per hour. “Once the river crosses 11.70-metre mark, it will inundate more than 200 villages in Bhogarai, Jaleswar and Baliapal blocks,” he said.People in Bhogarai, Jaleswar, Baliapal and Basta blocks, who were apprehending drought a week back, are now fearing a major flood as there is heavy rainfall in the catchment areas of Subarnarekha in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand.The district received 138 mm rainfall on Sunday. The administration has evacuated 350 persons from inundated Churmara and Melaka villages.While thousands of acres of paddy field have been inundated, some parts of Baliapal, Jaleswar and Bhogarai blocks remained cut off from the district headquarters as the water is flowing on the road at some places.Three senior officers have been deputed to oversee the relief and rescue operations in the four blocks.Land Cracking, Three Families Shifted Panic gripped Bhagirathpur in Basta block on Sunday after cracks developed on the land of 100 metre stretch here. Sarpanch of Brahmanda panchayat Rabindra Das said three families had been shifted. If the land slides it will affect at least 20 families, he added.BDO Bijay Kumar Mallick has sent a team to visit the village and report about the cause of the incident.