Family with 1-month-old baby rescued from floods in Jalgaon’s Amalner

A family, including a one-month-old baby, was rescued from a flooded home in Amalner, Jalgaon district, on Friday, after the local fire brigade and municipal health department carried out an emergency operation.

The district has seen incessant rainfall over the past two days, recording 104mm overall while Jalgaon city itself logged 118mm, local reports said.

The Tapi River went into flood as water levels rose, forcing authorities to open all 41 gates of the Hatnur Dam, while the Girna Dam filled to 100% capacity and the Aner River recorded its biggest flood in two years.

Elsewhere in the district, at Batsar, rescue teams pulled eight people from rising floodwaters in a separate operation carried out the same day.

The India Meteorological Department has issued an orange alert for Nashik and the Pune ghat area, with Sindhudurg, Satara, Kolhapur, Nandurbar, Wardha and Chandrapur under a yellow alert as the rain system continues across Maharashtra.

The state recorded an average of 51.09mm of rain over the past 24 hours, and has received 104.1% of its normal June-July rainfall so far this season.

The state government has directed district administrations in flood-affected areas to keep relief camps and emergency response teams ready as the monsoon system continues to move across Maharashtra.

IMD officials attributed the intense rain spell to a low-pressure area over the Bay of Bengal, which has driven heavy rainfall across the Konkan coast, the Western Ghats and parts of Vidarbha.

Maharashtra has received 104.1% of its normal rainfall for the June-July period this year, according to IMD data, reflecting an active monsoon season across the state so far.

Jalgaon district, located in north Maharashtra along the Tapi river basin, is prone to flash flooding during heavy monsoon spells because of its low-lying agricultural terrain and dependence on dam-regulated rivers.

The Hatnur Dam and Girna Dam are among the major irrigation reservoirs on the Tapi and Girna rivers respectively, both of which serve as key water sources for agriculture across north Maharashtra.

Photo by Kumarrakajee, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0