Four people, including a 53-year-old bedridden paralysed woman, died due to flooding following heavy rains in Maharashtra’s Nagpur, police said.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis announced the kin of the deceased Rs 4 lakh each as compensation on Saturday.
In the first case, flood water entered the house of Sandhya Dhore and her mother Sayabai Dhore (72) in Surendragadh. The relatives managed to rescue the latter, however, the former was left behind as she could not be moved from her bed, an official said.
"Sandhya Dhore drowned after the water level in the room increased. A rescue team found her body this morning," he said.
Heavy rains lashed over a span of few hours which flooded several parts of the Nagpur city after which over 400 people were rescued, which also included 70 students from a school for the speech and hearing-impaired.
Water gushed into homes and residential areas and roads looked like rivers after the city received about 90 mm of rain between 2 am and 4 am on Saturday.
Fadnavis takes stock of situation
Fadnavis took stock of rain situation in Nagpur on Sunday morning and visited homes to interact with flood-affected families.
He informed that the National Disaster Response Force and its state counterpart SDRF are undertaking rescue and relief operations across Vidarbha's largest city.
"As many as 10,000 homes have been affected. Mud has entered houses. The administration is providing medicines and help in cleaning up flood affected areas. The level of damage is serious. The amount of rainfall was higher than carrying capacity of the area," he told reporters.
"We could have minimised the damage if some measures were taken earlier. The IMD had given an orange alert but it could not predict this much rain would fall in such a short time. There is always something to learn from such disasters," he said.
Late Saturday night, Fadnavis and Union Minister Nitin Gadkari chaired a meeting to review the situation.
(With PTI inputs)
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