Representative image showing heavy rains.
Credit: iStock Photo
Gadchiroli: More than 100 persons from a village were shifted to safety in Gadchiroli in Maharashtra on Friday after heavy rains caused a lake to swell, while an excavator machine bucket was used to get a pregnant woman to cross a flooded 'nullah' and damaged road.
Water flowed into homes and a residential school in Suryapalli village in Sironcha tehsil after a lake breached its banks due to heavy rain since late Thursday night, leading to 112 persons, including 76 students, being shifted to safety, a Gadchiroli District Disaster Management official told PTI.
"Since yesterday, Sironcha has received 180 millimetres of rainfall. Such heavy rains often damage roads in the district, leading to some areas getting cut off," he said.
Gadchiroli Collector Sanjay Daine held a meeting of the District Disaster Management Cell during the day and directed the administration to provide immediate relief, including repairs of affected roads and creation of alternate routes.
In Kudkeli village in the district's Bhamragadh taluka, a pregnant woman crossed an overflowing drain and a damaged road after being made to sit in the bucket of an excavator machine as an ambulance sent for her could not reach the area amid heavy rain, officials said.
An ASHA worker and local health department staffers took her to a nearby hospital in an ambulance waiting on the other side after she crossed the drain perched in the excavator machine.
"The village does not have a hospital. The ASHA worker informed the community health officer (CHO) in Bhamragadh that a pregnant woman has to be admitted. The ambulance sent by the CHO could not reach the village due to heavy rains. Residents there deployed a JCB (excavator machine) to help the woman," Gadchiroli District Health Officer Dr Pratap Shinde told PTI.
She was taken to the Bhamragadh gram hospital and is fine, Dr Shinde added.