Several killed as rains continue in UP

Lucknow, July 27 :  Heavy rains battered Uttar Pradesh over the last 24-hours and claimed several lives, an official said on Friday.

The rains will continue for the next 48-hours but with a lower intensity, the Met said. 

According to the government official, nine persons, including four children, died in the Brij region, comprising of Mainpuri, Mathura and Agra. 

One person was electrocuted in Shipra Suncity of Indirapuram in Ghaziabad at the water-logged site. 

Owing to the incessant rains in many parts of the state, there have incidences of house collapse, caving in of walls and sinking of roads, leading to disruption of normal life. According to the Regional Met Office Director J.P. Gupta,

A house collapsed in Mubarakpur village while a wall of a junior high school collapsed in Dayanatpur village. A wall of a house in sector 71 of Noida also collapsed. 

A wall collapse in Hapur district claimed the life of a three-year-old while an elderly woman died after a house collapsed in Kharkhauda village in Meerut.

Two youngsters were also electrocuted in Muzaffarnagar and one woman was killed after an electricity pole fell on her here during rains. 

Five persons have been injured in Shamli district due to rain-related accidents. Train traffic has been affected in Baghpat due to a minor landslide at an underpass in Baghpat.

Rains have brought down the mercury in Lucknow, Kanpur, Kannauj and Farukkhabad. 

However, they have also given rise to problems and civic woes as many places have been inundated and the choked sewers and drains have made life miserable for people in towns and cities, including the state capital.

Traffic has been affected in Allahabad due to caving in of some arterial roads and also due to the massive construction work which is underway for the Kumbh 2019. 

Many villages have been cut off from the cities in the central and eastern regions of the state. 

Several trains are running behind schedule and flights have also been affected due to the inclement weather, an official informed IANS.

Trains like Bhopal Shatabdi, Taj Express, Gatiman Express, Lucknow Mail, Swarna Shatabdi are running behind schedule as at some places rains have inundated the rail tracks. 

Due to water logging on the runway the Agra-Jaipur flight was cancelled on Thursday. 

More than 500 persons were trapped in the flood waters in the Meera Vihar colony on Urkhara road in Agra. They were only rescued after the police pressed steamers to take them to safety.

In the western part of the state, reports of house collapses have been received from Moradabad, Muzaffarnagar, Meerut and Amroha. 

Cracks have developed in flats at Super Village society and Charles Castle apartments after a major section outside the apartments in Ghaziabad caved in due to heavy rains on Thursday, an official said. 

In Vasundhara area of trans-Hindon in Ghaziabad, a major chunk of the road outside the Varta Lok and Pragya Kunj societies caved in as a large pit had been dug in a neighbouring plot for construction of a basement. 

The rain water took with it lot of silt leading to major damage to the road.

The Ghaghra river is flowing 13 cm above the danger mark at Elgin bridge in Bahraich while a large part of agricultural land sunk into the river at Golaganj's Kothar. 

The administration conceded that there was a major flood threat on 65 villages of the region. Over 2.15 lakh cusec water has been released from the Sharda, Saryu and Girijapur barrages.

Ghaghra and Sharda rivers are in spate in Sitapur and the Ghaghra was flowing a little over the danger mark in Azamgarh, Barabanki.