India News | Heavy Downpour Across Coastal Odisha, More Rains in Store

Bhubaneswar, Jun 23 (PTI) The coastal belt of Odisha received heavy rainfall on Wednesday, leading to waterlogging in most of the urban pockets with the weather office predicting more downpours in the next 24 hours, officials said.

Marsaghai in Kendrapara district received the maximum 225 mm of rainfall in the last 24 hours, followed by Bhubaneswar (113.2 mm) and Cuttack (101 mm).

This apart, light to moderate rainfall occurred across Odisha, inundating low-lying areas, the Meteorological Department said.

There was heavy to very heavy rainfall at certain places in Puri, Cuttack, Balasore, Jagatsinghpur and Kendrapara, it said.

Heavy rainfall is very likely to occur at some places in Ganjam, Puri, Khurda, Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapara, Bhadrak, Balasore, Cuttack, Sundargarh, Jharsuguda, Sambalpur, Bargarh, Malkangiri, Koraput, Nawarangpur till 8.30 am on Thursday, it said.

Thunderstorm with lightning is very likely to occur at some places in Balasore, Bhadrak, Jajpur, Kendrapara, Cuttack and Jagatsinghpur, among other districts, during the period.

As many places in the state capital witnessed waterlogging, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) and the Odisha Fire Service jointly deployed 18 pumps for dewatering.

Excavators were used for removing blockage of water flow in areas such as Chakeisiani and Johala, which remained waterlogged after the rain in the morning, the BMC said.

Drains were cleared and encroachments were removed by the engineering wing at the Bomikhal area, the civic body said.

BMC Commissioner SK Singh ordered the removal of encroachments over drains that created problems for the engineering teams to clean the blockages.

The heavy downpour has brought down the maximum temperature in the state capital to 27.6 degrees Celsius and the minimum to 22.9 degrees Celsius, the weather office said.

The weather office also forecast a cloudy sky in the state capital with one or two spells of rain on Thursday.

Special Relief Commissioner (SRC) PK Jena asked all districts to closely monitor the situation.

"Take action as deemed necessary," Jena told the district collectors, adding that details of any incidents must be positively reported to the state government.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)