With the water level rising hourly in New Delhi’s main river, thousands of families are packing up a few belongings and leaving their homes as floods and rains destroy the area’s crops, his only source of income.
The rapid rise in the flow of the Yamuna River, the longest tributary of the sacred Ganges, sets the pace at which more than 6,000 people move away from the riverbed, leaving behind kilometers of crops that would support thousands of families after the next harvest and They are now under water.
They settle on the area about 1,200 houses that lack electrical service and basic services and that every yearwith the arrival of the monsoon season, which runs from May to September, they are forced to leave with what they wear to save their lives.
“We have to pack our belongings, but we can only take kitchen items and the rest flew away with the floods” in recent days, Seeta, a vegetable vendor who lives near the Chilla Khadar park, told EFE. bank of the Yamuna.
The young woman has spent days preparing to leave her home behind, which will be reduced to rubble while she and her family take shelter a little higher up, on the edge of the road.
There is also the young Ranjeet Shahni, who with the help of his brother marks the part of the land where he will rest with his five relatives and another group of people until they can return to their homes.
Although rescue teams provide two meals a day when families face this situation, “belongings flow with the floodwater,” farmer Rameshwar Maurya lamented to EFE.
The 45-year-old man already faced a similar situation in 2011 and 2014, when, with the floods that devastated the Indian capital, he had to move to the highway to keep his life safe from the flooding of the Yamuna.
START OVER
The rains in the capital, which last Saturday registered the highest volume of rainfall in four decades, impact on the economy of the inhabitants of the area, who are dedicated to the cultivation of vegetables such as carrots or chilies, and who lose months of hard work with the storm.
A group of women tries to save the few chili peppers that the floods of recent days have not been able to ruin, before the waters destroy everything in their path.
People like Girish Babu, who has lived in Chilla Khadar for more than two decades, are in charge of selling the harvested vegetables, although the profits are less when the monsoon approaches.
“When the flood comes, we have to go up (to the road, where the water does not reach). When we moved there, the apparent problem is employment; our crops are devastated and we face a series of challenges,” Babu explained to EFE while taking some belongings from the house.
“Vegetables are also getting more expensive as crops in this area are devastated by floodingSeeta sentenced.
DEATHLY VICTIMS
Heavy rains have so far left 22 dead in the last three days across the country, most of them in the city of Shimla, in the state of Himachal Pradesh.
The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) in its latest bulletin maintained the red alert for Himachal Pradesh, the state most affected by heavy rains this season, and lowered the risk in Uttarakhand, Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, and New Delhi, where “heavy to very heavy rain” is expected in isolated areas.