Barabanki, Uttar Pradesh

The villages in Barabanki district, in Uttar Pradesh, especially those in the vicinity of Sarayu river are no stranger to floods. It is an annual affair. But this time the deluge caught them unawares as for the past one week these villagers are displaced due to the sudden floods brought about by heavy rainfall in Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh. 

For some, they have seen such devastation for the first time. The older inhabitants struggled to recall when they had experienced such devastation.

“We were asleep. We woke up to find water everywhere inside our home,” Rohit Singh, from Sarai Sarjanpur in Sirauli Gauspur tehsil, Barabanki, told Gaon Connection, as he sat on a boat, clasping a gas cylinder, being ferried to a safer, drier place. “The sugarcane and paddy crops are destroyed. Everything is washed away,” he said.

When Gaon Connection visited the flood-hit areas yesterday on October 22, there was a sheet of water covering everything. Only a few green stalks of sugarcane stood defiantly, the only sign that once the area was a lush green sugarcane field waiting to be harvested, not the murky water-filled vast lake. 

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Since October 17, many districts in Uttar Pradesh have been lashed with incessant rains, which subsided only on October 20. Heavy rains have displaced several villagers and also led to considerable damage to paddy, sugarcane, banana and vegetable cultivation in the state.  

Three tehsils of Barabanki district, Sirauli Gauspur, Ramsanehighat and Ramnagar are the worst affected. 

In a press conference held on October 22 at Barabanki district headquarters, Mahendra Singh, Jal Shakti minister of Uttar Pradesh, said that  approximately 70 revenue villages were impacted by the floods. Nearly 27,000 people and 650 cattle are affected by the floods and about 4,000 families have been evacuated from the villages to safety. 

“Nodal authorities have been alerted and those affected will be compensated,” the minister announced. The government was with the people and would extend all help and support, he assured the media gathering. 

Also, yesterday, the Saryu river was flowing 77 centimetres (cms) above the danger mark. The capacity of the river is 450,000 cusecs but 700,000 cusecs of water was released into it by the Banbasa Barrage in the neighbouring state of Uttarakhand. 

In Mohammadpur village, Birendra Bahadur Singh, from the Mohammadpur police station with his team sat in a boat and, warned people through a megaphone, of the rising water and asked them to move out of their homes as quickly as they could and move to higher ground, elsewhere, in other villages, inhabitants complained that no one from the administration had shown up. 

Also Read: Incessant heavy rains damage standing and harvested crops in Uttar Pradesh bringing the farmers to their knees

Meanwhile, all those who fled their villages are not sure when they can go back home. “I grabbed some cooking vessels and ran out. All the provisions and grains in the house were washed away,” Savita Devi, from Sundernagar village, told Gaon Connection. 

Many of the villagers rushed out of their homes with just the clothes on their backs and no money at all. 

Shanthi Devi, also from Ramnagar, was distraught as her 60-year-old father Bachu Lal was unwell and she had no money for his treatment. She said she managed to escape with her parents and was now waiting for her brother who was in Delhi to show up. “Only then can I take my father to the doctor,” she said. 

There was despair in the voice of Ramesh who told Gaon Connection that his entire crop of paddy was destroyed. “I don’t think I will be able to grow anything on my field that is completely inundated,” the 40-year-old said. My field will never be ready in time for me to sow mustard, he added.  “I don’t know what I will do as I have no other source of income,” he said.

Also Read: Ishrat Jahan epitomises the pain of farmers repeatedly hit by extreme weather events

The litany of woes were endless. There was anxiety about what the evacuated villagers would find once they did manage to go back to their homes. There was despair about their future survival as the farms, their only source of income were damaged beyond repair, and of course, the ever present fear of the danger of disease when the flood waters receded.