BHUBANESWAR: With lakhs of people hit by floods in the wake of cyclone Phailin , Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik on Wednesday sought immediate release of Rs 1,523 crore from the Centre for relief and rehabilitation.

“I request the Centre to release an advance of Rs 1,000 crore over and above the corpus of Rs 523 crore available in the State Disaster Response Fund for the year 2013-14,” Naveen wrote in a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. He said a detailed report in the form of a memorandum will be presented soon after assessment of the damage.

Naveen’s letter came even as the official death toll due to the cyclone and flood rose to 36 (21 in cyclone and 15 in flood). Those killed include six in Balasore and five in Mayurbhanj. The disaster has affected over 1.21 crore people in 17,674 villages and 43 urban local bodies.

Although the government said it had stepped up relief and demobilised the Armed forces as the situation in flood-hit districts of Balasore, Mayurbhanj, Bhadrak, Jajpur and Keonjhar had “improved”, thousands of people, especially in Basta, Baliapal, Bhograi and Jaleswar blocks of Balasore remain marooned. In Dasrathpur block of Jajpur, thousands are precariously surrounded by water. Breaches have also been reported from different places.

“We have neither food nor polythene. We are waging a hard battle for survival,” said Ramakanta Sahu of Jaleswar. Like Sahu, a large number of people have shifted to embankments and roads for safety. The demand for relief materials was made by people in different districts including Ganjam, Balasore, Mayurbhanj and Puri.

“The rivers Budhabalanga, Baitarani, Subarnarekha and Jalaka had dropped below the danger level and falling,” said special relief commissioner Pradipta Mohapatra. “We’ve reached out through road and boat services to all areas and hence decided to demobilize Army, Navy and Air Force teams who were working the cyclone and flood affected areas,” he added.