TEAM HERALD
CANACONA: While Canacona continues to have painful memories of the Ruby Residency tragedy, the taluka also remembers another tragedy on Gandhi Jayanti five years ago when flash floods ravaged most parts of Canacona.
While two lives were lost in the floods, property worth crores of rupees had been destroyed in the flash floods, forcing the State to declare the flash floods of October 2, 2009, as a State disaster.
After the disaster, government appointed a committee to study the cause of the floods, which reportedly recommended several measures including setting up of radar stations to forewarn residents of similar floods, besides undertaking de-siltation of river beds, especially in high ends and river mouths.
The committee appointed by the State government under the then NIO chief Dr Satish Shetye recommended installation of two radars at Cotigao and Partagal to forewarn the residents of any impending danger of floods in the area.
Incidentally, residents of Cotigao and people residing along the banks of river Khushavati (also called river Talpona) were the most affected.
According to official paper brought out through Canacona deputy collector, Water Resources Department alone suffered damages, some of which irreparable, to the tune of Rs 4.8 crore.
Not many whose houses collapsed due to floods envisaged any precautions, but went about re-building their houses not only in the same low-lying flood prone areas, but reclaiming more flood-prone areas in several parts of the taluka.
Concerned residents are also expressing fears that authorities kept their eyes and ears closed and neither the local bodies concerned nor the Taluka Disaster Management authorities bothered to inspect and put a stop to the many new constructions that have come up post Canacona floods, particularly in the areas, which were washed away in the floods.
While 107 houses were totally damaged, as many as 591 house damage claims were received by the government, paying Rs 97.42 lakh even as 760 people had suffered major damage to their houses and over a thousand people displaced.
Government paid Rs 1,96,87,581 as relief to flood victims, which included settlement of an amount of Rs 99,45,081 for 2,119 agriculturists claims and Rs 97,42,500 as claims of 591 damaged houses.
The authorities had then assessed irreparable loss and damage such as livestock (Rs 40.35 lakh), electricity (Rs 500.64 lakh), industrial loss (Rs 330 lakh), community assets (Rs 1 lakh), water resources (Rs 4800 lakh), health (Rs 140 lakh), forest (Rs 185 lakh), water supply (Rs 200 lakh), agriculture (Rs 700 lakh) and national highway (Rs 857 lakh), total Rs 7.7 crore.
