Rain lashes Orissa, death toll touches 13

Heavy rains, triggered by deep depression, lashed southern Orissa in which 13 people were killed while 13 others were missing.

Heavy rains, triggered by deep depression, lashed southern Orissa in which 13 people were killed while 13 others were missing.

HT Image

Eleven of the deaths had been reported from the Guma block of Gajapati district due to landslides and house collapse following heavy rains, district officials said.

Two women were killed at Anukumba village under the same block when the house in which they were asleep collapsed, the sources said.

The Guma block had received 30 cm of rainfall. Of the 11 deaths in the block, six died as a huge chunk of earth and boulders buried two houses at Jhingirital village located below a hill while three others died due to landslide at Minjiri village nearby.

Two of the six bodies could be retrieved at Jhingirital as the area had been buried under a huge quantity of earth and boulders. The bodies retrieved belonged to a 35-year old woman and six-year-old girl.

A ten-year-old boy was swept away by the flood waters at Sanyasipur village under Padmapur block in Rayagada district.

While two of the vessels sank near the fishing harbour, two others went down off the Jatadhari mouth, sources said.

With the water level of rivers Vamsadhara and Nagavali on the rise, thirteen others were reported missing either in the flood waters of the Vamsadhara or in the Bay of Bengal off Paradip while on a fishing expedition, the sources said.