AHMEDABAD, 17 August 2006 — Authorities in India’s flood-hit western state of Gujarat moved tens of thousands of people to higher ground yesterday as more heavy rain caused rivers to rise, officials said.

The new alert comes days after a first wave of flooding killed at least 65 people and caused widespread damage in Gujarat’s Surat city.

“Fifty thousand people have been evacuated in the past 72 hours,” said Rajesh Bhatt, deputy chief fire officer who was supervising relief work in Gujarat’s commercial capital Ahmedabad. A state Irrigation Department official said levels at the Dharoi dam, 150 km north of Ahmedabad on the Sabarmati River, were near the danger mark.

“At present it is less than three feet below the danger mark,” said the official.

He said the department was planning to release 100,000 cubic meters of water per second in phases yesterday. “So people living along the riverbanks have been asked to move out to safer places,” he said.

Reports said heavy rain in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan — all bordering Gujarat — had caused the Sardar Sarovar reservoir on the Narmada River to overflow. The Press Trust of India news agency said residents of some central and southern districts of Gujarat had also been warned following the release of water from the Kadana dam on the Mahi River.

The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) has stopped traffic at four underpasses in the city fearing deluge. Officials said the army was put on standby for rescue operations. Flood alert was also sounded in towns and villages in Gandhinagar and Sabarkantha districts in north Gujarat.

Plague Threat to Surat

The specter of the 1994 plague — that claimed 50 lives — may revisit Surat, a disaster management institute has warned.

The Academy for Disaster Management, Education, Planning and Training (ADEPT) in Madras has issued a special health alert to nongovernment organizations (NGOs) and residents of Surat.

In a specific note on Surat, ADEPT observed: “Residents of Surat have begun to throw out rotting food, soggy mattresses and all garbage on the roads as the floods recede.”

“Here the specter of the 1994 plague (that began in Surat) looms large,” ADEPT Director U. Gauthamadas told IANS.