Tidal waves breach embankments, inundate crops in Kendrapara

Kendrapara (Odisha), July 15: Surging tidal waves have breached the feeble coastal embankments in seaside villages and inundated crop areas in Rajnagar tehsil of Odisha's Kendrapara district.

Incessant rain coupled with tidal waves ingress since Sunday has added to the misery of the people. Official sources today said the tidal waves and torrential rains accompanied by strong winds lashed Gobardhanpur, Olasahi, Mangarajpur, Naukana and Balarampur villages under Rajnagar tehsil.

The tidal waves have caused breaches in embankments at four strategic points leading to upsurge in water levels, while tidal waters have swamped villages and spilled over to the the saline embankment buffer erected about 20 feet from the sea coast, official sources said today.

Tidal waves also smashed Satabhaya coast inundating Satabhaya, Kanhupur, Barahipur, Balisahi, Rabindrapalli and Magarkanda villages. Tidal ingress has triggered breach in Rajnagar-Gopalpur, Keredagada-Alatanga and Mahua-Jagannathpur saline embankments, the sources said.

Over 2,500 acres of agriculture land are submerged following cave-in of embankments, they said. "The surging water spilled over the embankments.

As a result, portions the embankment have been damaged at four places. Work is on to repair the damaged embankments," Executive Engineer, Saline Embankment Division, Jugal Kishore Tripathy said. As a temporary measure, the inflow of water has been plugged by using sand bags, he said.

"We have identified some other vulnerable breach-prone points. Measures to repair the enfeebled points have been undertaken on a war-footing."

Saline embankment division engineers have been asked to undertake repair and maintenance work of weak embankments and sluice gates to stop future inundation, Kendrapara sub-collector Pratap Chandra Mishra said.

Unless the length of the embankment is doubled, it would be able to stop ingress of tidal waves in future, said former Sarpanch, Gobardhanpur Gram Panchayat, Damodar Biswal.

PTI