india

Updated: Aug 10, 2019 01:52 IST

At least five people were killed and hundreds evacuated over the past 24 hours even as heavy rains lashed the districts of Nilgiris and Coimbatore adjoining the Western Ghats in Tamil Nadu.

On Friday, the government requested the Sulur airbase of the Indian Air Force to remain on standby for rescue operations as the situation remained grim.

The Bhavani, Noyyal and Amaravathi rivers are overflowing, inundating several low-lying areas of Coimbatore city and its neighbourhood. Rains have caused landslides in the Nilgiris.

In an official statement, chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami announced an aid of Rs 10 lakh each to the families of the five victims in the Nilgiris.

He said a team of 491 personnel, comprising 66 from the army, is engaged in rescue and relief operations in the Nilgiris. A total of 1,744 people have been moved to safety and sheltered in 28 relief centres. Further, mobile clinics and ambulances have been deployed in the affected region, he added.

In Andhra Pradesh, the Godavari continued to swell for the fifth consecutive day on Friday, battering several coastal areas of East and West Godavari districts.

The water level in the river at the temple town of Bhadrachalam in Telangana crossed 48ft in the afternoon, forcing the authorities to sound alarm. According to reports from Bhadrachalam, flood water entered the halls where free lunch was served to the devotees.

The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) airlifted as many as 31 fishermen who were caught in the fury of the Godavari river in 18 boats at Veervarapu Lanka village.

“As many as 36 villages are marooned in the water, but the people refusing to move to safer locations,” an official from the Real Time Governance Society said.