By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun, 16 Aug: Heavy rains late Saturday night in Doon have caused landslides and waterlogging at many places in the city and the district. It was raining intermittently throughout the day on Independence Day but it started raining heavily late night causing havoc and panic among the residents. For several hours, many of the roads in the city looked like fast flowing rivers, resulting in huge damage to property and furniture in many houses in several colonies on Saturday night.
Maximum rain was witnessed at Clock Tower, where 100 mm rain was recorded within a period of an hour and a half. Low lying areas like Bhandari Bagh, parts of Kargi, Khurbura and Khadri Mohalla were flooded up to three feet for several hours due to the heavy rains. According to the weather department, it rained very heavily for over three hours in Doon on Saturday night. Various official and unofficial sources stated that water entered the homes of people in various colonies around Clock Tower and in Raipur, Rajpur, ISBT, Patel Nagar, Khurbura, Khadri Mohalla, Lakhibagh, THDC, Dehra Khas, Palm City, Banjarawala, Mothrowala and Kargi Chowk.
In block number 59 of Dehrakhas THDC Colony, water started flowing even over the bikes parked on the road, while the cars also remained drowned in water for several hours. The waterlogging damaged furniture and other items in homes and shops. In some colonies, the flooding happened so quickly that people did not get time even to move their valuables to safer place.
Speaking to Garhwal Post, Abhishek Parashar, a resident of Khadri Mohalla along Saharanpur Road, disclosed that the colony remained flooded till this morning, damaging some computers and other electronic items in his house and also in his neighbours’ houses. He added that MLA Khajan Das and Mayor Sunil Uniyal Gama had visited the colony late afternoon on Sunday.
For the first time ever in recent memory, the Doon Hospital campus of Dehradun Medical College was also flooded with rainwater forcing the hospital authorities to shift Covid patients from the ground to the first floor. Even one of the ICUs was flooded, forcing the patients to be shifted to another ICU, late last night.
The Bindal and Rispna rivers continued to be in spate this morning, too, posing grave danger to slum colonies located on the banks and on the riverbeds. As a result, district administration teams visited these areas and made announcements urging people to be careful. River Saung was also overflowing in Raiwala causing landslide in the area, particularly in Gohari Mafi village, which is known to be particularly vulnerable to flooding and landslides, while a few houses also collapsed in Premnagar. In Chanchak Mohalla of Banjarawala area, a car and a scooter were swept into the Nullah due to the sheer force of flooding water.
The State Disaster Management Control Room has issued an alert for heavy rains in the state over the next 24 hours. Consequently all the DMs have been asked to be on high alert and take proper measures to deal with the situation.
