Flood situation worsens, 9 killed in Tripura CM speaks to Amit Shah

AGARTALA: With the urgent call of chief minister Dr Manik Saha on Wednesday morning to Union Home Minister Amit Shah, additional National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) personnel arrived in a special flight to Agartala as the flood situation in the state continues to deteriorate due to incessant heavy rainfall.

Dr Saha said he spoke to Shah urging for more NDRF teams to assist in flood response and rescue operations. and briefed him on the current situation arising out of the severe flood and added, “I have been assured of all support in this critical situation.”

The Tripura government declared all education institutions closed on Wednesday and Thursday due to bad weather and the deterioration of flood situation across the state following continuous heavy downpours for the last two days.

The Chief Minister himself was confined at home since last night at his private house in the Ganaraj Chowmuhani area due to a flash flood. He came out on a boat and reached the Secretariat. He reviewed the flood situation with the administration.

Police said as of now at least nine casualties have been reported – six in Belonia and Santirbazar of South Tripura, two in Nutanbazar of Gomati district, and one in Mungiakami under Khowai district. All of them were killed due to the collapse of the mud wall house while two others, one each in the Gomati and Khowai districts, had gone missing feared drawn in the flood water.

The flood situation worsened in South Tripura, Gomati, West Tripura, Khowai, and Unokoti districts in the last 24 hours following excessive rainfall. The Gomati district administration had to open a gate of Dumboor hydroelectric project to manage the water pressure upstream on Tuesday night that inundated entire plains of Amarpur, Udaipur, and Sonamura.

However, no fresh casualty has yet been reported, said AIG (L&O) Ananta Das on Wednesday.

According to the report, embankment walls along the rivers in Kadamtala of North Tripura, Kailashahar in Unakoti, and Khowai have been broken following heavy water pressure from the other side, which inundated the habitation insides and towns.

More than 6000 families have been shifted to relief camps so far across the state. IMD issued a warning of heavy to very heavy rainfall across Tripura till Thursday. The central part of Agartala city is inundated due to flash floods and most of the offices couldn't function.


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