Over 17,000 people have been evacuated from 26 districts in UP due to floods and relocated to safer habitats, officials say.
The Relief Commissioner’s Office says out of the affected population, almost 3.53 lakh people have been affected by the floods. The impacted districts are Amroha, Ayodhya, Azamgarh, Badaun, Ballia, Barabanki, Basti, Chandauli, Farrukhabad, Ghazipur, Gonda, Gorakhpur, Hardoi, Kasganj, Kanpur, Lakhimpur Kheri, Mirzapur, Moradabad, Pilibhit, Prayagraj, Rae Bareli, Rampur, Sant Kabir Nagar, Shahjahanpur, Unnao and Varanasi.
Flood relief shelters have been set up at 1,312 locations throughout the flooding regions. Currently, 4,847 people have been housed at shelters, and relief works have commenced to reach displaced people with relief supplies and medical services.
The state government has also drastically stepped-up its rescue and relief infrastructure to meet the challenge. 1,634 monitoring and emergency relief flooding sites have been activated.
Besides this, 1,697 boats and motorboat have been deployed to help with evacuation and rescue operations in the inundated areas. As well as this, up to 1068 medical teams have been sent to work in affected districts to deliver medical and emergency medical supplies.
Authorities are keeping a watchful eye over vulnerable areas and relief workers are in efforts to reach families impacted by storm surges. Boat assessments and construction are being scaled up with medical teams and flood outposts deployed to ensure a coordinated response which will be monitored by authorities.
The administration has been doing all it can to prepare people to evacuate and distribute relief items to those hit with essential services to those affected in the flooded areas which number in the hundreds of thousands.