As many as 129 people have died in rain-related incidents, including multiple landslides, in Maharashtra over the last two days, while 84,452 people under the Pune division were shifted to safer places on Friday as heavy showers continued to wreak havoc in the state, officials said. This is the heaviest spell of rain in the state in July in 40 years. The Navy has been roped in for rescue and evacuation.
The deceased included 38 people who perished in a landslide in Raigad district on Thursday, a senior official from the state disaster management department said. “The death toll in Maharashtra in the last 48 hours has reached 129. Most of the deaths are from Raigad and Satara districts,” the official said. Several teams of National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) personnel too have been deployed for rescue operations in the Konkan region. While Ratnagiri, Raigad, Kolhapur districts are flooded, Sangli and Amravati are facing a flood-like situation. Thirty-six people have died in landslide in Raigad district. More than 50 per cent area of the coastal town of Chiplun in Ratnagiri, around 250 km from Mumbai and having a population of over 70,000, has got submerged in flood waters. Several people are missing after landslides in Raigad, which also led to roads being blocked.
Mumbai, neighbouring Thane and Palghar and other districts in the Konkan region have been witnessing heavy downpour since the last few days.
