Flood

As the topic suggests this post is all about “Downpour“, suggested by Kate for “Friday Fun“. Moreover this week Tina gave us freedom to choose our topic for lens-artists-photo-challenge so let it be “Downpour”. A little downpour is fun but continuous downpour results in Flood.

In 2019, the monsoon season started quite well in Western Maharashtra region in India. People were happy and started preparing for forth coming festivals in August and September.

During our India visit we travelled to a couple places in this region. The monsoon weather was perfect to enjoy the breathtakingly beautiful green surroundings.

Usually it pours on and off with a couple of managable floods. Last year near end of July it started to downpour without any rest.

We were fotunate enough to leave the region on right time as in less than a couple of hours the dam doors were opened to release huge amount of water resulting massive flood. Almost all highways in the region were blocked for weeks. Sadly thousands of people got affected. The giant Banayan tree and the water pumping station (shown above) were totally submerged in water for more than a week. With 1,000-2,000 families residing in this particular village, the village headman said that at least 150 animals were dead and stuck in the fields though the exact number was not known then.

Teams of Indian Army along with seven teams of National Disaster Relief Force (NDRF) were called and people were rescued using boats from flooded areas. Water level in certain area reached the mark of 55.4 ft when danger level is 43 ft.

Over 130 000 people were evacuated in the region. Many villages are located on the banks of local rivers which are tributaries of Krishna, the largest river in Maharashtra which flows through Satara, Sangli, and Kolhapur and then runs through four states before culminating into the Bay of Bengal.

Rivers were overflowing following incessant rains between August 5 to 8 in 2019, totaling around 900 mm of rain, which was over 400 percent above normal, an official from India Meteorological Department said.

Floods are acts of God, but flood losses are largely acts of man ~ Gilbert F. White

In January 2020, we visited a place which was not very far from the above shown places. The aftermath of flood was cleary visible but locals were getting back to a normal life.

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