So far 14 people have died as heavy rains continue to lash the western Indian state of Gujarat.
The weather department has said that the “intense wet spell” is expected to continue over the next few days.
Parts of south Gujarat and Kutch-Saurashtra regions received very heavy showers in last 24 hours .
Over 31,000 were evacuated so far this rainy season, officials said
Appaled by the infrastrucute in Gujarat Socila media Photos showed waterlogged streets and overflowing dams and rivers across the state.
Due to bad roads in Gujarat Transport services have been disrupted in several areas.
Many parts of the state have received unusually high rainfall since Sunday.
Some of these areas had recorded a deficit in monsoon rainfall until this month, according to Down To Earth, which reports on environmental issues.
Heavy monsoons rains have triggered havoc in Gujarat several times – in 2017, more than 200 people died in floods triggered by unrelenting rain.
According to a government report, many parts of Gujarat are vulnerable to floods because major rivers “pass through a wide stretch of the very flat terrain before reaching the sea”.
“These flat lowlands of lower river basins are prone to flooding,” it adds.
Rajendra Trivedi, Gujarat’s disaster management minister, said that 63 people have died since 1 June due to “rain-related incidents” such as drowning and walls collapsing.
India’s home minister Amit Shah has said that teams of the state and national disaster response forces have been deployed at various places in Gujarat.
Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel has directed the administration to carry out a survey of the affected districts at the earliest so that people do not have to wait for long for cash and other reliefs to compensate for damages caused due to the rainfall, he said.
In four hours between 6 and 10 am on Wednesday, parts of Junagadh, Gir Somnath, Dang and Amreli received downpour between 47 mm and 88 mm, according to the State Emergency Operation Centre (SEOC).
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued a ‘red alert’, predicting heavy rains during the next 24 hours in the districts of Saurashtra and south Gujarat.
