Army, NDRF carry out flood relief operations in Punjab

Army and NDRF teams on Thursday (August 17) rescued nearly 300 people from marooned villages in Punjab’s Kapurthala district. Kapurthala Deputy Commissioner Karnail Singh said six teams of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and Army pressed six boats to rescue the people caught in the floods and all those evacuated have been shifted to relief camps.A total of 22 villages have been affected by floods in the Beas river due to release of excess water from Bhakra Dam, he said while expressing hope that the situation would improve by Friday.
He said some flood affected people are living inside ‘dhusi bundhs’ (embankments) in ‘deras’ to look after their fields while nearly 40 people are reluctant to leave their marooned houses and their cattle.
Some parts of Hoshiarpur, Gurdaspur and Rupnagar and Kapurthala districts were submerged following the release of excess water from the Pong and Bhakra dams this week.
The Army and NDRF teams were also assisting in the rescue and relief work in some of the affected areas of Gurdaspur district. Medical teams in the district have been sent to houses via boats to check on people stuck in their homes for three days and those who don’t want to move out, said officials.
The Bhakra Beas Management Board (BBMB), which manages the Bhakra and the Pong dams, on Wednesday said it will release excess water in a controlled manner for the next four to five days to take the level in their reservoirs to a safe limit.
The Bhakra dam on the Sutlej river and the Pong dam on the Beas river — both in Himachal Pradesh — are brimming after heavy rain in their respective catchment areas.
Last month too, several parts of Punjab were affected by a downpour in the state between July 9 and 11 that flooded vast tracts of farmlands and other areas, besides paralysing daily life.