Mandvi town in Gujarat’s Kutch flooded; tractors, JCBs become passenger vehicles

At Mandvi municipality, in Mandvi on Friday. (Express Photo by Gopal Kateshiya)

In the posh Babavadi, Nityanand Babavadi, Vijaynagar, Meghmangalnagar, and Shriharinagar in the western part of the town, the first floors of people’s homes were underwater. Many were seen wading through waist-deep waters in streets to go out and purchase daily essentials as the runoff from adjoining rural areas kept moving through these localities and draining into the historic Topansar Lake in the heart of the town. Eight tractor-trailers and two JCBs of the solid waste management department of Mandvi municipality kept making rounds of the area and offered lifts to many. They were the only vehicles able to ply in flooded parts of the town on Friday.

At Mandvi municipality, in Mandvi on Friday. (Photo by Gopal Kateshiya)

The first floor of the headquarters of the Mandvi municipality in the western part of the town was also submerged. Floodwaters of Topansar kept spilling into the compound of the municipality headquarters and gushing out the main gate of the compound. The floodwaters kept racing towards Swaminarayan temple before draining into Rukmavati River and eventually into the Mandvi harbour, flooding Joteshwar Park and other areas along the way.

On the upper balcony of the municipality office sat Aniruddh Dave, local BJP MLA, busy receiving frantic calls from residents of this historic town. Callers requested the BJP MLA to send tractors so that they can return to their homes or move someone to a safer place. Bharat Shah, a leader of the Jain community of the town, called for a tractor to send seven members of a Jain family back to their homes in Nityanand Babavadi from Jainpuri, a community centre of Jains, in the dying light of Friday evening.

MLA Aniruddh Dave (extreme right) at the Mandvi municipality headquarters, in Mandvi on Friday. (Photo by Gopal Kateshiya)

The BJP MLA was telling Shah how there were no more boats available as the NDRF and SDRF teams had left and people had to be evacuated.

But Shah told the MLA that seven members of the family of one Dipen Shah were in the midst of a multiple-day-long fast in the runup to the holy period of Paryushan and that they were determined to return to their home. And eventually Dave sent the tractor-trailer.

Dave asked Paras Sanghvi, a councillor of Bhuj municipality, to accompany a tractor-trailer to facilitate the Jain family’s trip from Mahila Baug on the bank of Topansara to Nityanand Babavadi. Besides picking up the Jain family, the tractor also picked up Neeta Gusai, her two children and sister Pratima.

Paras Sanghvi talks to Dilip Bhanushali (extreme right) at the latter’s flooded house in Mandvi on Friday. (Photo by Gopal Kateshiya)

“Our home in Nagalpar village around seven km from Mandvi is flooded and in desperation, I came to Mandvi to seek shelter at my father’s home. I had heard about flooding but never imagined it could be so bad here. The autorickshaw driver refused to drive beyond Mahila Baug,” said Gusai as she and her children waded through waist-deep water to reach her father’s home in Nityanand Babavadi after alighting from the tractor-trailer.

After dropping all the passengers, Sanghvi ordered the tractor to halt outside the residence of Dilip Bhanushali in Meghmangalnagar to check if the latter’s 85-year-old mother and a young grandson were okay. “There have been no emergencies in the family so far but please tell Bhai (Dave) to do something about this flooding. It has been three days that we have not been able to step out of our home,” Bhanushali, 56, a vegetable wholesaler, told Sanghvi while warning the latter that snakes have been seen in the floodwaters.

“I have been living here for the past 20 years and never in my life have I seen such a high level of flooding in Mandvi town,” Bhanushali later told The Indian Express.

MLA Dave, 57, also said the same thing. “People in Kutch celebrate wildly if the district receives 18 inches of rain during the entire monsoon season. When I was president of Mandvi municipality between 2008 and 2010, Mandvi recorded 100 inches of rain during the season but never during that season the rainfall in a day was higher than 12 inches. But on Thursday, we got 16 inches of rain,” said the MLA, adding, “Water from an area 16 km away flows into Topansar. Also, there was a record-high flood in Rukmavati as upstream Vijaysagar dam is overflowing eight feet and the floodwaters of the dam flooded Joteshwar, Nagnath, Barivalu Naku, etc and didn’t allow floodwaters of Topansar to drain into the river.”

Jain family and Neeta Gusai ride a tractor-trailer in Mandvi on Friday. (Photo by Gopal Kateshiya)

The MLA blamed high-intensity extremely heavy rainfall in a short period and encroachment in natural drains for the flooding when asked if the municipality headquarters was obstructing the flow of the floodwaters. “After the old headquarters of Mandvi municipality was damaged by the 2001 earthquake, a new office building was needed. Therefore, this new office was constructed in 2003 here. This place used to be a dumping yard back then. So, the idea was to make the best out of waste. But no one imagined rainfall of this intensity back then,” he said.

Asmavati river was swollen on Friday evening. (Photo by Gopal Kateshiya)

As of Friday evening, around 500 people continued to be in shelter homes in Mandvi town and tractors kept ferrying people and food. Sanghvi tried to light the street with the torch of his mobile phone and guided Govind Gadhvi, the driver of the tractor whose headlights weren’t working. “The headlights failed the previous night when floodwaters were very high,” said Gadhvi.

But as darkness gathered, electricity supply was restored in many parts of Mandvi and people heaved a sigh of relief.