Heavy rains cause flood-like situation in Rajasthan

Jaipur, Aug 21: Torrential rains triggered by the South West monsoon have created flood-like situation in four districts of Rajasthan where six persons have been killed and over 70 airlifted, officials said today.

The Met department has issued a warning of heavy to very heavy rainfall for isolated places in Eastern parts and heavy rainfall for isolated areas in Western parts of the state in the next 24 hours. Baran, Pratapgarh, Chittogarh and Jhalawar are the worst affected districts.

Army, NDRF (National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and RAC (Rajasthan Armed Constabulary) have been deployed in the affected areas and several people have been shifted to safer places. Army has been deployed in Baran while many people were airlifted by Air Force from different locations in Baran and Pratapgarh district since yesterday, Relief Secretary Rohit Kumar told PTI.

He said Army, NDRF and RAC were deployed in Baran while NDRF and RAC teams were in Chittorgarh and NDRF in Jhalawar and Pratapgarh was having RAC teams doing the rescue work. Defence Spokesperson Lt Col Manish Ojha said that a total of 72 people have been airlifted since yesterday.

"34 people were airlifted in Baran district yesterday and 38 were airlifted today in Pratapgarh. More airlifting is also likely," Ojha said. Six persons of a family died when a portion of their house collapsed in Baran district yesterday. The house collapsed leaving Laxmi Narayan (72), his wife Shanti Bai (70) and four others of their family members namely Deepu (18), Anita Bai (26), Aishwarya (10) and Suraj (9) dead, police said.

Four others were also injured in the incident and are admitted at the district hospital, police added. The South West Monsoon has been vigorous for the last two days, triggering torrential rains at isolated places in Udaipur division, heavy to very heavy in Kota and Udaipur divisions and light to moderate at many places.

According to Met department, Danpur (Banswara), Arnod Sr (Pratapgarh), Badesar and Nimbahera (both in Chittorgarh) each have received 23 cm rainfall since yesterday. Badi Sadri (Chittorgarh) and Pipalkhunt (Pratapgarh) recorded 22 cm and many other places received below 22 cm rain during the same period. Dabok, Barmer, Kota, Jaipur and Ajmer have also recorded 56.2, 30.59, 2.6 and 0.3 mm of rainfall respectively, it said.

Meanwhile, water level in Chambal river in Dholpur today crossed the danger mark. The water level is posing threat of flood-like situation in more than two dozen villages near the river.

PTI