Rain fury batters Surendranagar Dist

Rajkot, Sep 18 (UNI) The rain fury has battered Lakhtar, Limbdi and Patadi talukas of the Surendranagar district of Gujarat.

Forty-five villages in Lakhtar taluka and 20 villages in Patadi taluka remained submerged, snapping connectivity to the villages in these talukas. About 4,000 people were shifted to safer places from low-lying areas in the district.

To provide relief to the affected people, the district administration has undertaken rescue and relief works on a war- footing in these talukas. For this, it has demanded helicopter from the Gujarat government, official sources said.

Rescue teams have reached there and started distributing food packets in the worst-affected villages of the district.

Due to heavy downpour in the Saurashtra region, train services between Rajkot and Mumbai were severely affected as rail tracks were submerged near Surendranagar. Mumbai-Porbandar train was halted at Viramgam near Ahmedabad today and Saurashtra-Janata Express (Jamnagar-Bandra) was halted at Rajkot yesterday, while Saurashtra Mail and Saurashtra Janata were cancelled from Mumbai.

The railway authorities here have returned the refunds to the passengers following the cancellation of the trains towards Mumbai, the sources said.

Fifteen cattle perished in the flood waters after a check dam near Bambanbore in Surendrangar district burst yesterday. However, no human casualty was reported from there, official sources said.

A pregnant woman, trapped in water at Kadachh village of Porbandar district, was rescued by the police and fishermen after she complained about labour pain. She was later shifted to Porbandar hospital, a report from Porbandar said.

Due to the fresh spell, kharif crops might be adversely affected, agriculture experts opined.

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