New Delhi A man was rescued Monday by an Indian Air Force helicopter after standing in the middle of wild floodwaters for 16 hours. A video shared by a senior police officer in the Bilaspur district of Chhattisgarh state showed the rescue from the deluged Kutaghat Dam area, which is normally a popular picnic spot.
Another video of the night before the rescue showed the man standing on a rock when water was sitting around him, clinging to a tree branch to prevent it from slipping into the stream.
Large parts of India and Bangladesh have been experiencing heavy rainfall in recent weeks, several rivers have swelled to dangerous levels and caused widespread flooding that continues to increase a record-breaking season that is to blame for more than 1,000 deaths.
Heavy rain covered the western Indian city of Jaipur on Friday, flooding large parts of the city and destroying cars and small houses. Videos of a bus rides through heavily congested streets and a man who was rescued as he swerved through a road, riding with knee-deep water, went viral on social media.
According to figures reported Monday by the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs, in less than three months, 868 people were killed in the floods and earthquakes in 11 states. More than 14 million people have been hit or displaced in nearly 13,000 villages.
More than 160 people have been killed in neighboring Bangladesh as one third of the country has been affected by the flood in the last two months. An estimated 1.5 million people have been displaced and hundreds of thousands of homes damaged.
Assam, Bihar, West Bengal and Kerala are some of the hardest hit Indian states, where hundreds of thousands of people now live in relief camps.
Anupam Nath / AP
Last month, scores of dead were blamed for the floods in the state of Assam of India, where the floods also took a toll on the country’s wildlife, including the rare rhinos with one horn as the flood flooded Kaziranga National Park.
The Indian federal and state governments have deployed dozens of disaster management teams to the areas affected by flooding to assist with rescue and relief operations.
This is always a season that is marked by monsoon rains in India and the wider region, but the total rainfall for August is already 15% above the typical level, nationally. Some southern states have seen 70% precipitation above normal levels.
The Indian Meteorological Agency, the Indian Meteorological Division (IMD), has forecast heavy rainfall for several states over the next three days, warning that the conditions of the monsoon could continue for at least two weeks.
“The currently above normal rainfall activity for the country will remain above normal for the next two weeks. It could lead to inundation of low-lying areas on some occasions over central parts of the country,” the agency warned.
While many of India’s farmers probably had hoped for rain after years of sporadic drought and water shortages – including an acute water crisis in Chennai last year – the flooding is now causing large-scale crop damage. More than 1.1 million acres of crops have been damaged in four states, according to government data. Officials are still assessing the damage in seven other states.
India and Bangladesh are facing the battle while also fighting the coronavirus pandemic. Maintaining social distance during rescue and relief operations has proved a challenge for authorities in both countries.
India is the third worst country to hit coronavirus, with more than 2.6 million COVID-19 cases confirmed and 50,000 dead. Bangladesh, which is much smaller in size and population, has recorded nearly 280,000 cases and 3,700 deaths.
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