Water dips but Met sees more rain

Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee has cut short his visit to the US by a day to supervise rescue and relief operations by the armed forces in Gujarat. Mukherjee, who returned last night, was to undertake an aerial survey of the flood-damaged areas today but his aircraft could not take off due to poor weather conditions. Congress chief Sonia Gandhi will join him tomorrow for the survey.

Meanwhile, a high-level inter-ministerial committee under D.K. Shankaran, secretary in-charge of disaster management, took stock of the situation last evening. The committee was told that rail services on the Delhi-Mumbai route were normalised while the traffic on the highway returned in a limited way. National highways 6, 8 and 8E have also become operational for select vehicles while NH-59 was expected to open for traffic this evening.

Nine Army columns and more than 700 CRPF personnel and 80 boats have been deployed for rescue and relief work in the worst-hit Kheda, Anand and Nadiad and pockets of Ahmedabad rural and Vadodara districts. Relief operations, however, will have to factor in predictions of heavy to very heavy rainfall at a few places till noon tomorrow and thundershowers in most parts of the state. Power supply has been disrupted in more than 4,000 villages. Relief operations are now three-pronged, with the Army, Air Force and Central paramilitary forces pitching in.