Thousands flee huge floods

Press, 23 September 1980, Page 8

Thousands flee huge floods

NZPA-Reuter ' New Delhi Thousands of panicstricken villagers have flee their homes in the eastern Indian State of Orissa to escape monsoon floods which are reported to have killed hundreds of people in the last five days. “Anything may happen any time,” irrigation experts said yesterday as more rivers breached embankments; Orissa’s Chief Minister (Mr B. J. Patnaik) told journalists that the floods in the coastal districts of Cuttack and Puri would reach their peak in the delta area of the Mahanadi River today. The Press Trust of India reported that about 2.5 million people would be affected. A press trust correspondent who visited the town of Kasinagar, first hit by floods last Wednesday, said that at least 300 people had died there and about 1000 houses had collapsed. Human corpses lay scattered on the roads. He said that according to one eye-witness a cinema had collapsed under the impact of a wall of water which hit the town and an unknown number of people had been trapped inside.

li The official death toll so far stands at 203. But un- > official reports quoted by the d press trust said the toll n would go‘ much higher once >- communications with cut off h villages had .been restored d and rescue teams had e searched the debris of thousands of collapsed y houses. d Official reports said that s more than 61,000 people were marooned in 78 villages of r the Cuttack district after flash .- floods last week. e The press trust reported i that at least 50,000 people . r were made homeless in three e towns of the Puri district— Gudari, Kasinagar, and Gunua pur, where Mr Patnaik was I- manhandled- by famished vil-' 1. lagers who stoned his helii- copter at the week-end. if Thousands of people had s waded to safety .through it waist-deep water. ' . d Officials said ; planes had s dropped food and medicines s in the Gunupur area. \ Other reports said 90 o people were, feared killed' in a floods in neighbouring i- Andhra Pradesh while 75 h more deaths in three days in n northern Uttar Pradesh state n brought the total there to 1520 since last July.