Struggle to collect food, mosquitoes, lost belongings and the dearth of space are only some of the many woes people are facing at the parts of Delhi where Yamuna river has breached into and entered residential areas – leaving nothing untouched at certain places and just the upper floors spared at some.
Families shifted to relief camps have been scrambling to get their meals, rushing to form queues on hearing horns of food trucks.
“We face a lot of trouble here at night because of the mosquitoes. Even the food we get mostly has rice. For those who have a fever, how will they manage to eat only rice?” PTI news agency quoted Shanti, a resident of Yamuna Khadar.
Yamuna river in Delhi has reached record levels amid heavy rain and release of water from Hathnikund barrage, leaving several areas of Delhi and the national capital region (NCR), including Monastery Market, Civil Lines, Yamuna Bank metro station and Kashmere Gate ISBT inundated.
‘Nothing to return to’
A resident of Yamuna Khadar, Rajesh, said the floods have left him with nothing to return to, a year after he borrowed money to repair his house. “My house is still under water and most of my belongings are gone. I had borrowed money for repairs last year, and now everything is washed away again. I don’t know how I will repay the debt,” he said.
Ram Kishan, a farmer, said his family is left with no means of livelihood after his crops were destroyed. “All my fields have gone under water. This year’s entire harvest is gone, and my family completely depended on it,” PTI quoted Ram Kishan.
In Mayur Vihar Phase I relief camp, people were seen trying to hold on to whatever they could save.
People are resorting to makeshift drying lines made with strips of cloth tied to ropes stretch across the middle of the camp. Amid all this, piles of salvaged belongings and plants uprooted by the floods lie scattered.
Poonam, the mother of a six-month-old baby, is struggling to get a private space to feed her child.
“Living with a small child like this, under the open sky, is very difficult. There is no privacy, no comfort and we are constantly worried about the baby’s health,” she said.
The roadside is now lined with utensils, mattresses and wooden cots.
The water level in the Yamuna river at Delhi’s Old Railway Bridge receded to 207.31 metres at 8 am on Friday, a day after reaching the season’s highest at 207.48 metres.
The warning mark for the Yamuna in Delhi is 204.5 metres, while the danger mark is 205.33 metres. Evacuations are carried out once the level reaches 206 metres.