Chandigarh, Sep 6 (IANS) As Punjab is facing worst floods since 1988, several villages in Ludhiana district were impacted as water on early Saturday entered fields and destroyed several acres with the breach in the crucial Dhussi bundh in the Sutlej river near Sahnewal town.

However, government officials claimed flood water was stopped by the “ring bundh” that they had erected temporarily as a preventive step.

“If the Bhakra dam releases more water, it will create problem,” an official said, adding “water was stopped by the ring bundh”.

The district administration had already moved residents in vulnerable areas to safer locations.

More than 1,500 people, including Indian Army and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), personnel, NGOs and villagers, were deployed to reinforce and secure flood protection by raising the ring bundh.

The swollen Sutlej has been flowing dangerously and villagers were working to strengthen the embankment by putting earth filled bags voluntarily to protect the fields and villages from flooding.

Ludhiana Deputy Commissioner Himanshu Jain was constantly reviewing work on the temporary “ring bundh” going on war footing in Sasrali on Friday night.

In appeal on Friday, the Deputy Commissioner asked the public not to panic over fake reports of water breach circulating on social media, clarifying that no such incident has been reported in the district so far.

While the floods have already severely impacted across the state, the rising water level of the Sutlej has posed a serious flood threat in Sahnewal’s Sasrali Colony, water levels entering the fields and creating a highly critical situation.

Extending their support, the Punjab BJP also joined the ongoing relief efforts.

Party spokesperson Pritpal Singh Baliawal, accompanied by his Sahnewal team, had actively participated in the operations alongside the administration, working tirelessly to prevent any breach of the embankment.

Baliawal had raised concerns on multiple occasions regarding the embankment’s weak condition.

In his crucial effort to safeguard the area, local panchayats and the youth from adjoining villages had also come forward to provide support to strengthen the embankment.

State Revenue, Rehabilitation and Disaster Management Minister Hardeep Singh Mundian said on Friday that with rainfall subsiding in upper hilly regions as well as in Punjab, the state has witnessed relief from floods.

Forty-three lives have been lost across 14 districts of the state from August 1 to September 4.

The Minister added that as per district reports, there has been no further rise in the affected population during the past 24 hours although some areas of farmland remain submerged.

He also shared that no fresh loss of human life has been reported during this period.

Giving further details, the Minister said that as many as 21,929 people have been evacuated from marooned areas across the state.

The major evacuations were carried out till date in Gurdaspur (5,581 people), followed by Ferozepur (3,840), Fazilka (3,953), Amritsar (2,734), Pathankot (1,139), Hoshiarpur (1,615), Kapurthala (1,428), Jalandhar (511), Barnala (539), Mansa (178), Moga (145), Rupnagar (245) and Tarn Taran (21).

–IANS

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