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DAM-L India: Floods and Dam discharge maroons millions (fwd)



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From: Right to Water <right-to-water@iatp.org>
To: dianne@sandelman.ottawa.on.ca
Subject: India: Floods and Dam discharge maroons millions
Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2001 20:15:35 -0500
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Right to Water (right-to-water@iatp.org)    Posted: 07/23/2001  By  svarghese@iatp.org	
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DEVELOPMENT-INDIA: FLOODS AND DAM DISCHARGE MAROON MILLIONS 
By Ranjit Devraj 

NEW DELHI, Jul. 19: More than a million people were left stranded in
eastern India's Orissa state today by flooding that was worsened by the
release of millions of gallons of water from the world's longest dam, the
Hirakud, into the Mahanadi river delta. 

In a statement, Orissa state chief secretary D.P. Bagchi said the opening
of the floodgates yesterday was unavoidable since "we must ensure the
safety of the Hirakud Dam." 

The dam, which has a spectacular 21 kilometer-long movable dyke, encloses
Asia's largest freshwater lake, with a 640 km shoreline. 

As anticipated, the 850,000 cusecs of water released from the dam through
its sluice gates exacerbated floods in the thickly populated coastal towns
and villages of Orissa. 

Reached by telephone, Special Relief Commissioner Hrishikesh Panda, who is
in charge of relief in the disaster-prone state, confirmed that at least a
million people were currently marooned and said the situation was rapidly
worsening because of incessant rains. 

Panda said that relief supplies were being airdropped or ferried to
stranded people in boats with the help of the army, but said he did not
expect normalcy to return to the state inside of a week. 

According to the United News of India (UNI), reporting form the state
capital of Bhubaneshwar, at least five million people were affected by the
floods and 40 people have died. 

Orissa began evacuating hundreds of thousands of people from the coastal
areas, which started flooding a week ago as a result of unusually heavy
rains this monsoon season. The monsoon begins in June and ends in September. 

Air force officials here said a fleet of helicopters and heavy-lift
aircraft are now airdropping food and supplies to the marooned people, but
operations were hampered by poor visibility in driving rain. 

Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has also announced relief worth $ 1
billion to help the impoverished state cope with floods, even as critics
lashed out at the government's response to such disasters. 

Bijaya Mahapatra, leader of the opposition regional party the Orissa Gana
Parishad (OGP), blamed the management of the Hirakud Dam for the floods,
which he said was the result of suddenly discharging it in an "unscientific
manner." 

After touring the worst-affected districts of Kendrapara and Jagatsinghpur,
Mahapatra also accused the government, led by Chief Minister Navin Patnaik,
of "complete failure in carrying out rescue and relief operations." 

Mahapatra has demanded that the army be called in to rescue millions of
people stuck without food or safe drinking water on rooftops and high
points on the vast Mahandai delta. 

Television footage taken from helicopters showed at least 10,000 people
strung out along an elevated expressway near the port town of Paradeep,
which was flattened by a supercyclone that hit Orissa coast in October 1999. 

Officials in the Union Agricultural Ministry in New Delhi, which is
responsible for managing disasters, confirmed several breaches in the
Mahanadi River and said a team has been rushed to Orissa. 

The floods, the latest in a series of cyclones, floods and droughts which
ravage Orissa with monotonous regularity, have put to the test a plan for
natural-disaster preparedness put together with support from the United
Nations Development Program (UNDP). 

"Recurrent vulnerability to natural calamities is a critical dimension of
the state's poverty profile and I am glad that the U.N. system is
collaborating with us to augment disaster preparedness and management,"
Patnaik said when the state was hit by severe droughts earlier this year. 

Devastating drought and floods in succession in Orissa, which adjoins
Andhra Pradesh state, and other parts of the country, have called into
question the efficacy of India's vaunted disaster warning systems. 

In August last year after Andhra Pradesh suffered from severe floods, Chief
Minister Chandrababu Naidu blamed the Indian Meteorological Department
(IMD) for wrongly predicting scanty rainfall in the state. 

India is one of the few countries in the world which, for some years now,
has been using space technology for near real-time monitoring of droughts,
floods and cyclones. 

However, this is yet to translate into benefits for ordinary people because
of poor information management, say experts. 

Copyright 2001 Inter Press Service   
Inter Press Service 

LOAD-DATE: July 20, 2001     




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