Bhubaneswar: Over 19.53 lakh people of 2789 villages in 53 Blocks & 14 Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) of 11 districts have been affected due to the heavy rain, office of the Special Relief Commissioner (SRC) said on Monday.
The districts are—Kalahandi, Kandhamal, Koraput, Cuttack, Jajpur, Puri, Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapara, Dhenkanal, Khordha and Angul.
The government said that it has evacuated 3819 persons from low lying areas in five affected districts while 265 houses damaged in nine of the affected districts.
Highest 11.36 lakh people were affected in Jagatsinghpur, while 7.79 affected in Kendrapara, over 15,000 in Puri, 10,000 in Kandhamal, 8,000 in Jajpur and 2500 in Cuttack.
As per the report, 1590 persons have been evacuated in Jagatsinghpur district, followed by Puri (1584), Kendrapara (532), Cuttack (106) and Kandhamal (7).
Major rivers in Odisha were in spate following the incessant rain. Official sources said the water-level in Mahanadi river at Naraj, Devi (Alipingal), IB (Sundergarh), Kushabhadra (Nimapada), Brahamani (Panposh and Jenapur), Baitarani (Anandpur & Akhuapada), Subarnarekha (Rajghatta), Vansdhara (Gunnupur) and Rushikulya at Purusottampur are rising.
The Jalaka river is flowing at 05.60 metres at Mahtani against the danger level of 05.50 metres. The Water Resources department has cancelled leave of all employees in view of the rainfall.
All the schools in Puri, Khordha, Cuttack, Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapara, Dhenkanal, Nayagarh, Sambalpur, Deogarh, Angul, Sonepur and Bargarh have been closed for two days- September 13 and 14.
Meanwhile, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said the deep depression over north coastal Odisha moved further west-northwestwards during the past 6 hours with a speed of 13 kmph and lay centred close to Keonjhar.
It is very likely to continue to move west-northwestwards across north Chhattisgarh & Madhya Pradesh during next 48 hours and weaken into a depression during subsequent 12 hours, the IMD said.