Thaindian News

Lucknow, Aug 2 (IANS) Hundreds of villages and towns along the India-Nepal border in Uttar Pradesh were flooded by waters gushing down the Himalayan rivers, the government said Tuesday.

Incessant rain all along the Himalayan foothills compounded the plight of the people, authorities said.

A huge chunk of an embankment along the Ghaghra river in Barabanki district, 50 km from state capital here, was washed away Monday night. It swept away at least three dozen villages in Barabanki and its adjoining Gonda district.

The government has ordered suspension of the concerned chief engineer and four of his subordinate engineers responsible for raising the embankment, said an official spokesman here but declined to be named.

But “there was no loss of human life”, an official maintained.

“At least 300,000 people were affected by the floods in parts of Barabanki, Gonda, Sitapur, Balrampur and Lakhimpur-Kheri districts where more than 2,000 hectares of agricultural land was badly hit,” the spokesman said.

Provincial Armed Constabulary personnel were looking for stranded villagers, he said, adding that districts magistrates were told to sound a round-the-clock alert and personally supervise the relief operations.

Rains disrupted normal life in urban areas too, including the state capital Lucknow, said Rajeshwar Singh, additional municipal commissioner.

“We have installed pumps to relieve the people of waterlogging but uninterrupted rain has made our task difficult,” he said.