Shillong, June 27: Two Garo victims are among the five persons affected by the flash flood in NEEPCO residential colony of a hydro power project in Arunachal Pradesh.
Out of five persons who were missing the bodies of Balari Marak (30) and Nirmala Gupta (35), teacher’s of of Vivekananda Kendra Vidyalaya (VKV), NEEPCO, Yazali, were recovered.
The missing persons are Elis Marak (13) Tao Anjina and Sourav Kumar.
The mother of Balarl and Elis is undergoing treatment after she was injured in the incident.
A EEPCO statement issued on June 26 said that In the early hours of 24 June, around 6.30 am a flash flood occurred in the residential colony of Panyor Lower Hydro Power Station in Keyi Panyor District, Arunachal Pradesh.
The incident was triggered by a highly localised and intense rainfall that commenced around 3 am over a small catchment in and around the project area.
The rainfall caused two small streams near the Administrative and Dam site colony to overflow, which washed away 24 residential buildings and also damaged several other buildings of the colony. One person lost life, while four persons are reported missing. Search and rescue operations are being carried out by the district Administration, SDRF and Indian Airforce. The state Government and NEEPCO jointly started the rescue and relief works immediately, including airlifting of injured persons.During the period of the incident, the Early Warning System (EWS) established by NEEPCO for rainfall and reservoir inflow forecasting for the project did not record any high rainfall or high discharge.
“As per the preliminary assessment, the sequence of events shows that the incident was due to localised heavy rainfall and not because of any sudden increase in flow from upstream of the river. The incident was in no way related to the operation of reservoir and Power House of the Project. No impact has been reported in the downstream areas of the project as a result of this incident”, .lthe NEEPCO said.
