New Delhi: Odisha capital Bhubaneswar and Puri received record levels of rainfall on Monday, with the downpour throwing normal life out of gear in the coastal state. A flood alert has been issued by the India Meteorological Department (IMD).
According to reports, Bhubaneswar received 195 mm rainfall in 24 hours, breaking a 63-year-old record.
News agency PTI said that two people were learnt to have died in a wall collapse in Kendrapara district, but there was no official confirmation yet.
The pilgrim town of Puri also received its highest rainfall in 87 years, with 341 mm of rain in a single day. The coastal town had received 210.8 mm rain on September 2, 1934, officials said.
Vehicles were seen floating on water near the ISKCON temple in Nayapalli area of Bhubaneswar, where gushing water swamped homes and markets. An ambulance which got stuck on the way to a hospital was seen being pushed to a dry patch of road by locals. Some houses in the Dumuduma locality built on farmland have developed cracks, locals said.
Identical scenes were witnessed in Puri, Cuttack and Paradip, PTI reported.
Officials said municipal authorities have deployed over 100 pumps in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack to drain out the water.
Heavy rain, triggered by a deep depression, has been battering Odisha over the past few days.
Waterlogging was reported from several areas of Bhubaneswar as the state capital recorded 195 mm rainfall in 24 hours till 8:30 am on Monday. On September 9, 1958, the city had received 163 mm rainfall, they said.
The depression over the northwest Bay of Bengal intensified into a deep depression and crossed the coast near Chandbali in Bhadrak district on Monday morning, following which the weather office issued alerts for 13 districts.
The system is very likely to move west-northwestwards across north Odisha, north Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh over the next 48 hours, the weather office said.
It issued a ‘Red’ warning, predicting heavy to very heavy and extremely heavy rains in Sambalpur, Deogarh, Angul, Sonepur and Bargarh.
In the last 24 hours, Puri received 341 mm rainfall, followed by Paradip (219 mm), Gopalpur (64 mm), Chandbali (46 mm) and Balasore (24 mm), the weather office said.
The Central Water Commission (CWC) issued an alert for several districts as major rivers and their tributaries swelled due to the incessant rain.
“Water levels of the Brahmani river and its tributaries are expected to rise in districts such as Angul, Deogarh, Sundargarh, Kendrapara, Dhenkanal and Jajpur. Baitarani is expected to rise in districts of Keonjhar and Bhadrak,” the CWC said.
The Mahanadi and its tributaries are also likely to maintain an upward trend in Cuttack, Khordha, Puri, Jagatsinghpur, Jharsuguda and Bolangir, it said.
A flood situation is expected in Odisha since the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has predicted extremely heavy rains, the CWC alert said.
The Jalka river flowing above the danger mark in Balasore, it said.
The weather office has asked all ports to hoist ‘cautionary signal III’ as the sea is rough.
Depression could influence rains in Chhattisgarh too
The IMD said on Sunday that the low-pressure area over the Bay of Bengal was likely to intensify into a depression by Sunday night and was expected to bring extremely heavy rains over parts of Chhattisgarh, apart from Odisha, during the next two days.
The IMD has also issued a red-colour coded alert to Odisha and Chhattisgarh for September 13, cautioning that the states are expected to witness heavy rainfall activity.
“A well marked low pressure area lies over northwest and adjoining west-central Bay of Bengal. It is very likely to move west-northwestwards and concentrate into a depression over northwest Bay of Bengal and adjoining areas of north Odisha-West Bengal coasts during next 12 hours,” the IMD said on Sunday afternoon.
It is very likely to move west-northwestwards across north Odisha and north Chhattisgarh during subsequent 2-3 days, it added.
“Isolated extremely heavy rainfall activity (is likely) over Odisha and Chhattisgarh during next two days,” the IMD added.
The IMD said isolated heavy to very heavy rainfall activity is very likely to continue over Gujarat, north Konkan, north central Maharashtra and east Rajasthan during the next five days.
Isolated heavy falls are also very likely over coastal and south interior Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Karaikal and Kerala during the next three days, it said, adding isolated very heavy falls are likely in Telangana on September. 13.
The IMD added that isolated to scattered rainfall activity is likely over Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh during the next five days. Fairly widespread to widespread rainfall activity with isolated heavy falls is likely over Uttarakhand from September 12-16, it added.
(With PTI inputs)