Flood and Landslide in Maharastra: Situation Report and Update by CCF-India team

Situation in the affected areas:

Landslides buried this village along the northwest coast of India. Rooftops (bottom of picture) were the only portions left uncovered.

Heavy monsoon rains have pounded 600 villages of the entire Raigarh district in Maharashtra State, during July 24-31, unleashing large-scale destruction and bringing all activities to a standstill.

The rainfall level for a single day set a record. Incessant rains on and from July 25 triggered landslides in Jui, Dasgaon, Rohan and Kondivate village in Mahad Block of Raigad district.  Nearly 1450 people were affected in the four villages.

As many as 190 people in the four villages were reported missing after the rains and landslide. Bodies of 94 people — among them 32 children and seven sponsored children — have been recovered alone in Jui, a CCF project village. The death toll could climb as many are still reported missing.

The flooding and landslide has wrecked havoc on the lives of the people of these villages. The loss of property is widespread; all the belongings of many families have been swept away by floodwaters or buried under the landslide. The water level rose to 10 feet in these villages.

Government authorities have declared five more villages (Muthavalli, Chochinde , Sav, Vanikond, Karanjkhole) as high-risk, fearing further landslides in these villages due to their location. Immediately after the first set of landslides, 6500 people from the five high-risk villages were evacuated to relief camps.

Four out of these five high-risk villages are CCF project villages.

Interventions by the Government:

• The army was called in for immediate rescue operation but continuous heavy rain has affected the excavation operation in the landslide-affected villages. It is feared that more than 60 bodies are still buried under the debris in Jui village alone.
• The government has declared a compensation for the families inundated in flood. However, as has been observed in other occasions, these aids may take some time to reach the people.
• With government assistance, people from the affected villages were rescued and taken to safer locations. The government has also set up temporary camps for the high-risk villages.
• The government allocated a supply of 10 kilograms of rice and 10 kilograms of wheat per affected person through the public distribution system, but it has not yet reached the nine villages. The local government has requested  that CCF supply food grain to the camps. (The sub-division officer requested that the CCF-India team organize immediate relief)
• Medical officers are placed in the camps day and night. CCF is supplying medicine to these camps to supplement the government stock.
• Water is being supplied to the people at the nine camps. CCF team was asked to provide water storage tank to all the camps.
• CCF has provided water storage tank to all the camps.

CCF- Project Status

PRIDE India has been working in Mahad Block throughout the past 15 years. The project office in Mahad was fully inundated and the project has lost most of its infrastructure. Keeping in view the past experience of 1979’s flood, the project took some precautionary measures and advance planning at the onset of the incessant rainfall, but efforts did not curtial the damage.

The water level crossed all earlier records, damaging the entire office and disrupting communications network. Staff is also badly affected. A large number of staff members were marooned in their houses and have suffered loss in this disaster.

CCF-India Interventions to date:

With its project partner PRIDE-India, CCF-India has taken immediate steps to reach the affected families and provide relief. 

It took three days for the project team to reach Jui village and get the first-hand report.

• In close coordination with the government, the project is working in all four landslide-affected and five vulnerable villages.
• The project office relocated to a temporary makeshift office.
• CCF-India was the first agency to step into the villages for immediate relief operations.
• Upon request of government authorities, emergency relief in the form of food grains and clothes for the children was supplied at the four camps. Dry rations were distributed to the remaining five camps. 
• The CCF team has provided water tanks in all of the camps.
• The CCF teams also distributed tarpaulins for the families relocated to nine camps.
• Community kitchens were started at the camps. A  committee of the camp inhabitants was created to run the system.
• The CCF team supplemented the emergency medicine supplies of the government at the four camps in the worst affected villages.
• The CCF team provided volunteers from the project in all the camps to monitor food quality, medical services, etc. 

CCF Support and Budget

CCF-India enabled the local project to initiate immediate relief activities within 24 hours of the incident and approved an immediate budget. As soon as the roads were cleared, the CCF team from the North Zone, the area manager and the zone manager traveled to the affected villages. They met with people in the relief camps, army personnel and government officials to assess the situation and develop an appropriate intervention plan. The zone team initiated a formal coordination mechanism between the district administration and CCF project management to ensure effective support to the people and transparent management of resources.

Long-term Effect

Following the immediate relief and rescue phase, the greatest challenge will be to resettle and rehabilitate approximately 9,000 displaced people. All nine villages have to be resettled in a safer place to avoid such destruction in the future. In the affected villages people are left with almost no livelihood option as most of their livestock has died and the agricultural land covered by a thick layer of silt.