Over a lakh people were stranded at home in several parts of the city that went underwater on Friday following Titli-induced heavy rain overnight.
Channels of the surface water drainage system overflowed at several places with water entering homes. There was no sign of respite, as roads remained submerged under 2-3ft of water, forcing people to face such miseries for the second time in less than three months.
“Rainwater entered our house at around 2am, forcing us to shift to the first floor,” said advocate Prasanna Nanda, who lives at Police Colony. The ground floor rooms of Nanda’s house remains waterlogged even after 12 hours. The Bidanasi police station, a few hundred metres from Nanda’s home, also remains inundated.
The experience of Trilochan Mohanty of Kesarpur-Gahmandi is no different than Nanda’s.
“We had to shift to the first floor when the main drain started overflowing onto the road and then into our house at around 1.30am,” said Trilochan. It was well past noon on Friday, but like most in the neighbourhood, the filthy drain water sat still on the ground floor of his house.
At Rausapatna, Dushmant Biswal, like most residents of his locality, looked worried as he prayed for the rain to stop.
“We have had enough trouble with surface water overflowing into the streets and entering our gates,” Biswal said. Outside his home, the road remained heavily waterlogged.
At Bisnabar, Prafulla Mohanty echoed the same feeling with the road outside his house overflowing drain contributing to the waterlogging in the area.
“We got up when the rain started pounding and saw water entering houses in our locality. It was around 5.30am and we had to shift our household articles to save them from the rising water level,” said Suresh Sharma at Pithapur.
“Though are house is no more waterlogged, nothing has changed for the road outside even after 12 hours,” he said.
Official reports indicated that nearly 60 low-lying areas, along with a few slum-pockets, were battling severe waterlogging conditions.
Officials have been deployed in these areas to assess the situation and ensure proper management of relief and rescue operations. They will also have to ensure proper functioning of water pumps, evacuation of residents to safer places and proper distribution of food items, if necessary.
People here had undergone the same ordeal on July 21 when several areas in almost all the 59 wards of the city reeled from waterlogging conditions following heavy rain.