SMS from Collector office causes panic in Ahmedabad

Ahmedabad, Aug 12 (UNI) Even as memories of Surat flood disaster kept recurring to the people here, a flash message on their mobiles at midnight from the collector's office asking them to ''shift to safer place'' gave them a sleepless night.

The message read: ''People residing in low-lying areas near river in Ahmedabad city and from Vautha to Ingloi villages of Dholka taluka are requested to move to safer place. Collector Ahmedabad.'' In a city, where people have more than one mobile in the family and different mobile services, the messages continued to pour in whole night. Continued rains with frequent spells of heavy rains throughout the night added to the anxiety and tension.

Entire night, mobile phones continued to buzz with SMS from the office of district collector warning people living in the low lying areas on the banks of river Sabarmati to move to safer areas.

Official sources said the message was a precautionary measure to alert people. However, there is no threat of flood and no cause of fear for people of Ahmedabad. The message was targeted at people of low-lying areas because of release of 1.50 lakh Cusecs of water since last morning.

Inflow of water at Dharoi which was 55,000 Cusecs earlier has come down to 15,000 Cusec. The water level at Dharoi dam was 618.5 ft against the danger level of 622 ft.

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