No rain for 24 hours at Vasai, Nallasopara: Five days on, Vasai remains flooded

A flooded area at Vishal Nagar in Vasai. Prashant Nadkar

SEVERAL PARTS of Vasai and Nallasopara remained flooded for the fifth consecutive day as water levels receded only marginally on Thursday. While it stopped raining on Wednesday, the waterlogging situation in low-lying areas along the creek has not improved at all, said, residents. In Vasai, Suncity and Gass in the east and Samta Nagar, Evershine City on the west of the railway tracks were flooded. Achole Road, Chheda Nagar and Samta Nagar in Nallasopara remained inundated as floodwater didn’t recede even as rainfall subsided.

The Vasai Virar Municipal Corporation (VVMC) has borrowed two dredging machines from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation to remove muck from the drains and railway culverts to facilitate the passage of water. Pumps have also been deployed in low-lying areas to drain out the water. “There is a lot of sludge that has come in with the flood water. This has choked the drains. The two machines will help clean that and facilitate the flow of water,” said Satish Lokhande, municipal commissioner.

The culverts in the railway tracks are to be cleaned first, said sources.

Meanwhile, residents were miffed with the civic authorities as water had not drained out even after 24 rainfree hours. “It hasn’t rained at all since Wednesday and yet the water levels are the same. There is at least 2-feet water outside my house and the municipal corporation hasn’t been able to pump it out,” said Aamir Shaikh, a Nallasopara resident. Having spent two days without electricity, he waded through knee-deep water to reach a friend’s house where he could charge his phone.

The flood has cut off several households from the main city as residents couldn’t step out or go to work. “In the 30 years of my time in this township, I have never seen a situation like this that flooding continued for five days,” said Vasai resident Rajaram Mulik.

On Wednesday evening, the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited restored electricity in 3 lakh households after almost 36 hours of blackout. However, many houses didn’t have electricity on Thursday as their meter rooms were submerged. “We will now issue an order asking buildings to install their meter rooms, particularly in low-lying areas, at a particular height,” said Palghar collector Prashant Narnaware, adding that the water levels were expected to recede completely by Friday morning.

The collector’s office has started surveying houses for structural damages. Once identified, these houses will be compensated for repair work, said the collector.

The civic chief said the corporation was resorting to special measures to treat water. “The flood water have polluted the water supply so we are treating the water using special techniques,” said Lokhande. Many of the household water tanks are underground and remain polluted by the flood water and the VVMC is planning to hire agencies to clean these water tanks.

So far, civic hospitals have not recorded cases of water-borne diseases. Dr Rajendra Chouhan, chief medical officer of Vasai civic hospital said patients are being screened for leptospirosis and other water-borne diseases. “We are also doing door-to-door checks and distributing preventive medicines,” he said.