KALABURAGI – Days of nonstop heavy rain in Maharashtra’s catchment areas, along with big water releases from its main reservoirs, have caused serious flooding in northern Karnataka. Rivers have risen, bridges have gone submerged, and thousands of residents have had to leave their homes, leaving a path of destruction in areas like Kalaburagi, Bidar, Yadgir, and Raichur.
Bhima River Floods, Blocks Important Highway
The crisis has been centered around the Bhima River, which has been getting a huge amount of water from Maharashtra’s Sina, Veer, and Ujani reservoirs—3.5 lakh cusecs. The floodwaters covered part of National Highway 50 at Jewargi, which is an important road that connects Kalyana Karnataka to the rest of the state. The river swelled to the level of the highway bridge at Kattisangavi and then covered it, stopping all traffic. The problem caused huge lines of trucks and left passengers, even those in ambulances, stuck for miles. Some passengers had to walk across the waterlogged bridge by Saturday night.
Kalaburagi and Bidar are two of the worst-hit areas.
One of the districts that has been hit the hardest is Kalaburagi. According to Deputy Commissioner Fawzia Tarannum, the Kagina and Nagavi rivers have also overflowed, shutting off Mudabul village and other regions from their taluk headquarters. In the village of Jattur, flooding got into more than 90 homes, and 200 people had to be rescued. There is a flood threat across 85 villages, thus the district government has built 41 relief centers and transferred 6,664 flood victims to safer places.
In Bidar district, the situation is just as bad. Heavy rain and water discharges from Maharashtra’s Dhanegaon reservoir have triggered floods all over the place. Deputy Commissioner Shilpa Sharma gave a full report on the damage, which includes:
Three people died
38 animals died
100 homes flooded, ruining things inside them.
420 classrooms were destroyed in schools.
A lot of damage to buildings, including 246 electrical poles, 36 transformers, and 24 health clinics.
Relief Efforts and the Official Response
On September 30, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah will go to Kalaburagi to see how bad the floods in the Bhima river basin were. He is supposed to meet with officials from the districts that were hit, like Kalaburagi, Bidar, Yadgir, and Vijayapura, to go over the relief efforts and speed them up. The Chief Minister has also told senior authorities to go to the areas that were hit and make sure that all necessary safety measures are in place to stop more people and animals from dying.
In the meantime, aid camps have been set up in different places throughout the impacted districts. There are 266 individuals living in relief facilities in Bidar, in the villages of Ghataboral and Belakera. Five relief centers are open in Yadgir, where 1,160 flood victims have been evacuated to safety. The district has also said that a lot of dwellings were damaged and tiny animals died.
The Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre (KSNDMC) has sent out a warning that the Bhima and Kagina rivers are at very high flood levels. Officials are keeping a careful eye on the ongoing issue. They note that the region has had a lot more rain than usual in the last few months, which has made the flooding worse.