For Surat evacuees, it was like reliving the horrendous past

Even as the Tapi swelled higher and higher, Nirmala Rattan Rajput — one of the 20,000 evacuated from Bapunagar — said, “We were told to leave the house and then brought here. But we have no water, no food, nothing.” She wasn’t the only one complaining; others in the same camp agreed essentials like drinking water and food were in short supply.

While residents of the Bapunagar slumand Kadar Shah Ni Nal areas have been shifted to municipal schools in Bade Khan Chakla, Chowk Bazaar and the Memon Hall, people evacuated from Sanganpore, Amroli and Katargam areas have been shifted to community halls and schools in the locality itself. Varachha, Kapodara and Limbyat residents have been shifted to higher places elsewhere.

Not all camps, however, reported being short of essentials. Many said they had been provided medicines and food packets by afternoon. At the Memon Hall, volunteers of the Memon Samaj cooked meals for the 600-odd evacuees and fed them twice a day.

Apart from voluntary organisations, senior Surat Municipal Corporation officials are overseeing the rescue and rehabilitation work. The task of moving those affected to safer places has been decentralised and is being carried out independently in different zones.

Until afternoon, the SMC had shifted 14,000 people to different schools. Said Assistant Commissioner B T Shah, “Food packets are being distributed among all peoplewho have been shifted, but since the system is decentralised, it is not possible to ascertain the exact number of food packets given away immediately.

Municipal Commissioner S Jagadeesan said in the afternoon that though the amount of destruction caused by the floods was likely to be more this time because of the extra water, the SMC would ensure that all essential commodities were available to those affected.

“Distribution of food packets, medicines, chlorinated water and other essential commodities has already begun among those shifted,” he said.

Shaikh Nabib, lodged at school no 23, 24 at Bade Khan Chakla however differed. “There is no facility even for water here, leave alone food and medicines”, he said.

Nabib was shifted to the same school four years ago from Kadar Shah Ni Nal, which is one of the first to go under water when the Tapi is in spate. A few among the 1500 persons lodged there said that one SMC official visited the place in the morning, but had not returned since.

Almost allevacuees said that besides some cash, clothes and valuables, they had left behind their belongings with no hopes of seeing them again.

“I constructed the house again in 1994 and will do so again,” said Divesh Rajput of the Mithi Kahli area who is currently housed in a school. Others complained, some expressed resignation at fate, while yet others were happy that they were not dead.