Two people were swept away after a tractor overturned into an overflowing drain in Dukheri village in Ambala on Saturday, police said.
Four people were travelling in the tractor trolley carrying bricks from Naraingarh to Mohra when the vehicle lost control and overturned near the village, they said. Two of them were rescued.
A search operation is underway with the help of villagers, police said. Locals said people had warned the tractor occupants against crossing the waterlogged stretch but they did not heed.
More than 3,000 villages in Haryana are heavily water logged due to heavy rainfall and breaches of canals and drains. In several villages in Hisar, Sirsa, Fatehabad, Bahadurgarh, Ambala and Kurukshetra, residential areas were submerged upto three to five feet. People are moving to safe places along with their cattle and rescue teams have been pressed into service.
In Kurukshetra, the Markanda river was overflowing and the Ghaggar river was flowing above the danger mark in Sirsa. Haryana State Disaster Response Force (HSDRF) have carried out rescue work in several flood affected areas in Bahadurgarh, Faridabad, Ambala, Kurukshetra, Yamunanagar and other areas.
In Hisar, residents of PWD minister Ranbir Gangwa’s native village Gangwa urged the administration to drain water as their houses were inundated and cracks had emerged there. Hisar deputy commissioner Anish Yadav also visited the village and took stock of flood-affected areas. Sirsa MP Kumari Selja also visited the village on Saturday and slammed the government for not handling the situation and abandoning people.
Following a breach in the Singhwa Ragho canal, residents of Gurana and Khanpur in Hisar pelted stones at each other and the latter accused the former of breaching the canal and due to this excess water entered into their village. Nearly 25 people from both villages sustained injuries and admitted to various hospitals in the district. After the incident, police were deployed in both the villages and the situation is under control.
The residents of Khanpur said that people of Gurana had broken the canal and due to this water moved towards their village.
“Due to this, our villages like Singhwa Ragho, Ghirai and Sindhar will drown. The people from these villages have started moving to their relatives’ villages. Our crops were damaged and now we fear of house damage,” they added.
In another Hisar village, Litani, over 250 families have shifted to other villages after water level rose. Rakesh Kumar, a local resident said that rainwater from neighbouring villages entered their village.
“More than 3,000 acres of land was submerged and our houses had six to seven feet of water. Due to the alarming situation, we moved to safe places. In the last two weeks, the administrative officials and politicians just made statements and we did not receive any help from them,” said another resident Kuldeep.
In Bhiwani’s Sagwan village, residents were rescued and moved to safe places by Tosham police and administration. The streets are inundated under four to five feet of water which is entering residential areas as well. The locals have shifted their animals, children, women and valuable items to their relatives’ villages.
In Sagwan, the body of a man floating in the water was found. The deceased has been identified as Hari Kesh Redhu, a resident of Baliyali village in the district.
Bhiwani superintendent of police (SP) Sumit Kumar said that the police officials along with district administration carried out rescue work in Sagwan village and the people were shifted to camps.
Another 30K farmers raise claims on e-Kshatipurti portal
As many as 1.88 lakh farmers from Haryana’s 3,079 villages have registered 11.05 lakh acres of agricultural land on the e-Kshatipurti portal so far and sought claims for their damaged crops till Saturday evening.
Former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda visited several flood affected villages in Rohtak today and held discussions with administrative officials to help the people in taking water out. Hooda said that the standing crops were submerged in water and the government should immediately announce to give ₹70,000 per acre to farmers.
“The government should give orders to initiate special girdawari of crops instead of asking farmers to upload pictures of damaged crops on the portal,” he said.
After visiting several flood affected villages in Hisar, Rajya Sabha MP Randeep Singh Surjewala said that over 2,300 villages are affected by flood in Haryana and dozens of people have died.
“The government has failed to address the waterlogging issue and crops on over 10 lakh acre were destroyed due to flooding. The government should give compensation of ₹1 lakh per acre within a week. The NDRF teams shall be called in the state to carry out rescue work. As many as 17 districts of Haryana are grappling with flood and connectivity in the villages have been snapped,” he added.
Haryana chief minister Nayab Singh Saini said that the state government is constantly monitoring the situation after the rains.
“The government is standing with the people of Haryana. The e-Kshatipurti portal has been opened for the affected farmers. Through this portal, 1,69,738 farmers from 2,897 villages of the state have registered for more than 9.96 lakh agricultural land. After verification, further action will be taken in this regard,” he added.