Odisha: Water level recedes, but many villages still cut off

Bhubaneswar: Water level has receded in most of the rivers in Odisha on Saturday but still many villages remained cut off due to the snapping of road links, officals said.

Around 6 lakh people have been affected due to heavy rain and floods in Mahanadi, Brahmani, Baitarani and Salandi rivers and some other small tributaries.

The Special Relief Commissioner's (SRC) office said the State government has evacuated 52,573 people and 315 free kitchens were opened to feed the flood-affected people. ''The people who did not come to the shelters might be facing problems. But arrangements have been made to provide dry foods like 'chuda' (flattened rice), 'mudhi' (puffed rice) and other items,'' an official at the SRC office said, adding that as many as 2,737 houses were reported to be damaged in the twin calamities of heavy rain and floods.

Stating that two persons have died in the calamity, the official said one death was reported from Keonjhar district while another from Jajpur district.

Meanwhile, excess floodwater of Hirakud dam in Sambalpur district continued to be released through 20 gates on Sunday as water level of the reservoir stood at 621.95 feet against the full capacity of 630 feet.

The inflow and outflow of water into the dam, which was 3,88,932 cusecs and 3,55,793 cusecs on Sunday morning, dropped to 3.5 lakh cusecs, State Water Resources department Engineer-in-Chief Bhakta Ranjan Mohanty said.

“There is no flood threat for Odisha. The water level in the river is receding at all places in the State. The discharge at Khairmal and Baramula is 4.78 lakh cusecs and 3.96 lakh cusecs, respectively, while it has receded to 2.61 lakh cusecs at Mundali. There are no plans to open more gates of the dam as of now,” he said.