Four missing as coracle capsizes in Krishna river in Raichur

Team Udayavani, Aug 18, 2020, 2:43 PM IST

Raichur: Four people, including a six-year-old girl, went missing as their coracle capsized while trying to cross the swollen Krishna river in Raichur district, a government official said on Tuesday.

“13 people were crossing the swollen Krishna river in the Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka border at Kuravakula village when suddenly the boat capsized on Monday evening. While nine people have been rescued, four are still missing. Search is on to trace the missing persons,” Commissioner of Karnataka Disaster Management Authority, Manoj Rajan told PTI.

Reports also suggested that many shepherds in Raichur district were stranded in a river island due to the increased water level in the area. According to Rajan, the National Disaster Response Force and the State Disaster Response Force are working in tandem to rescue people in the affected areas. Besides these four, three others have gone missing on Tuesday in different parts of the state including two in Kodagu district.

According to an official in the KarnatakaState Disaster Monitoring Centre, the floodgates of almost all the important rivers have been opened as most rivers are flowing above the danger level. Rivers like Krishna, Malaprabha, Ghataprabha, Bhima have wreaked havoc in most parts of north Karnataka. Parts of Belagavi, Raichur, parts of Kalaburagi, Vijayapura, Bidar and Koppal bore the brunt of the downpour and subsequent floods.

The official said dams in Krishna basin such as Bhadra, Tungabhadra, Ghataprabha, Malaprabha and Narayanapura are full to the brim and their floodgates have been opened. As a result, the villages and towns in the downstream are badly affected.

“We have already sounded an alert in the affected places and are shifting the flood-hit people to safety,” the official said.

Rivers in the Cauvery basin too are flowing above the danger mark. The four important dams in the Cauvery basin namely Harangi, Hemavathi, Krishnaraja Sagar dam, and Kabini are full and their floodgates have been opened, the KSNDMC official said.

The Centre has predicted heavy rains in Udupi, Uttara Kannada, Dakshina Kannada districts in coastal Karnataka. Shivamogga, Chikkamagaluru, Hassan, and Kodagu in the Malnad region will also receive heavy rainfall. On North Karnataka, the KSNMDC said there will be moderate to heavy rains in Belagavi, Dharwad and Haveri districts.

“Scattered to widespread light to moderate rains and isolated heavy rains likely over Bidar, Kalaburagi, Yadgir, and Vijayapura districts and isolated to scattered light to moderate rains likely over remaining districts of the NIK region,” the KSNMDC said in its daily weather report.