With 8,700 more people shifted to safer places on Wednesday,the total number of people rescued across Vadodara district in the last three days is 31,000. Of these,1,650 were shifted from within Vadodara city. On Wednesday,the Vishwamitri river was flowing above danger mark of 28.9 ft and water in Ajwa reservoir had reached 213.30 ft. At least four people have died in rain-related incidents,officials said. Arjan Ahir,a resident of Vaghnera village in Mandvi taluka of Surat district,drowned in Gadaria creeks. In two rain-related deaths in Ahmedabad,a child in Asawra and a woman in Chandlodiya died due to electric shock,while a 17-year-old girl was killed in Morbi district as heavy rains pounded the region. The stormwater drains of the biggest cities of Gujarat failed to cope with the unexpected deluge,in spite of elaborate pre-monsoon plans drawn up by municipal corporations. The retreating monsoon drowned Ahmedabad,Vadodara and Surat,exposing inadequate infrastructure and paralysing life since Saturday. Vadodara Municipal Corporation,which expanded to over 159 sq km,from its original 108 sq km area,largely relies on a drainage system built in 1894. VMC Commissioner Manish Bharadwaj said,The available infrastructure is inadequate. It might look like we have not done our work,but the fact is that there are no stormwater drains in the city. We need eight hours of dry spell to ease out the canals. Ahmedabad has a stormwater drainage network that can handle only one inch rainfall in an hour. On Wednesday,a deluge of five inches of rainfall in two hours left a large part of the city submerged. No city can cope with rains like we do. The stormwater drain design and layout is the same as that being followed in the country. No city can cope with a heavy rainfall of 5 inch in just one and half hours, claimed AMC Commissioner Guruprasad Mohapatra. Similar were the claims of Surat Municipal Commissioner M K Das,as large parts of the city went under water. We had completed pre-monsoon activities well in advance, he said. As heavy rains continued for the third day,the administration spent yet another sleepless night conducting rescue operations,with at least two undertaken on an urgent basis in Vadodaras worst affected taluka,Karjan,which saved 160 lives. Vadodara Collector Vinod Rao said that he received an SMS from a villager at around 9:30 pm on Tuesday,urging him to save 25 families trapped between two overflowing rivers. About 110 people were rescued in the operation,Rao added. Over 12,000 people were evacuated by the administration and two batallions of NDRF. All 51 boats of SMC and six boats of NDRF are being used for rescue. About 4,000 people staying in 15 villages in Olpad taluka have been shifted to safer places, said Surat Collector Jayprakash Shivhare. Sixty students stranded in a school in Moti Monpari village of Visavadar were also rescued. Heavy rains derailed government functions. The launch of online booking system for Gir and Devaliya Park,scheduled to take place in Gandhinagar on Wednesday,was cancelled. The BJP postponed its state-level meeting of office-bearers that was to be held at Anand on Thursday. Rains played spoilsport at the inaugural session of Ahmedabad International Arts Festival. The 81st Air Force Day celebration in Jamnagar on Thursday was cancelled too. Continued water logging led the Western Railway to cancel 18 trains.
