Rescue teams, comprising the Indian Army and National Disaster Management Force (NDMF), on Monday evacuated 60 people, including 15 children, who were stuck near Lapra village in the district due to flooding in Yamuna river since Sunday.
It took more than 24 hours for the district administration to rescue the stranded villagers as inclement weather hampered the rescue operations.
"All villagers were evacuated from the flooded waters with the help of boats. Though we had roped in three Indian Air Force teams from Sarsawa (Saharnpur, UP), Hindol (Ghaziabad, UP) and Bhatinda (Punjab) to airlift the stranded people but the poor weather condition did not allow us to start the operation on Sunday night," deputy commissioner (DC) Makrand K Pandurang said.
A group of 51 villagers was stuck at an island in the Yamuna river, while nine others were stranded in fields and high-rise tracts of land.
Residents of Lapra, 15 km from the district headquarters and located on the banks of Yamuna along the Saharanpur (Uttar Pradesh) border, had gone to cultivate musk melons on a tract of land in the river on Sunday morning when the river's level started rising at an alarming rate.
The DC said that on Monday morning, a record of more than 8.3-lakh cusecs of water was recorded at the Hathni Kund barrage that had receded by more than 2-lakh cusecs in the afternoon.
{{/usCountry}}The DC said that on Monday morning, a record of more than 8.3-lakh cusecs of water was recorded at the Hathni Kund barrage that had receded by more than 2-lakh cusecs in the afternoon.
{{/usCountry}}"Heavy rainfall in the upper reaches and Yamunanagar itself in the past 48 hours has caused havoc. But timely action prevented loss of life," Pandurang said. As heavy inflow had been recorded at the barrage near the Kalesar forest area, the administration has alerted the downstream districts of Karnal, Panipat and Sonepat about the possible flooding, the DC said.