Vadodara rains: Marooned residents caught unawares, call for help

He claimed that he has been living in the same locality for 12 years but has never faced such a situation before. “Since 12 years, despite heavy downpour, we never experienced a flood-like situation. There is a small canal close by which was filled up last year for an upcoming commercial project,” he added.

Hostels of the MS University ran out of food supplies and faced power outage.

“The area outside the hostel is completely waterlogged. There is no option to wade through the water and go out as it is not safe. There’s no electricity for more than 12 hours. Water and food supplies were hit. We have asked the University officials and even self-help groups for help,” said Saloni Mishra, a BCom student and students’ leader.

Kartik Kothari, a resident of Waghodia road, claimed that no help reached them despite reaching out to the authorities. “My aunt lives in Makarpura area and she has been unwell. She lives alone and we wanted to reach to her but we have not been able to. There is no electricity or drinking water here. I called the helpline number almost three hours ago but there is no response yet,” Kothari said.

Another resident of Manjalpur, Akshat Patel, claimed that he was asked to stay indoors when asked for help from VMC officials. “I reached out to the VMC through Twitter. They asked for contact details and then called. When I informed them that there was chest level water here and no electricity, they asked me not to move out of the house and asked to contact MGVCL for power issues. Most of the numbers were continuously busy,” Patel said. Manjalpur police team, along with NDRF, rescued a woman who was eight months pregnant to a safe location from the same society on Thursday afternoon.

As many as 73 people were rescued from Devpura locality in Vishwamitri area by Raopura police.

Those rescued also included a one-and-a-half-month-old boy whose father carried him in a tub on his head as we waded through neck deep water with the help of the ropes to reach to safety. Over 50 people were also rescued by the Vadodara police from Siddharth Society close to Vishwamitri river. Another team of Manjapur police rescued over 80 people from Mujmahuda and moved them to safer locations including Atladra primary school and Swaminarayan temple.

“Our control rooms have been receiving information regarding stranded people. We either use a boat or ropes to wade through the water. In certain occasions, we also carried elderly people on our shoulders. We then moved them to a dry patch from where we moved them to a safer location on our vehicles and bus,” said Manjalpur police inspector, ZM Sindhi.

The fire department, too, rescued over 1,000 of people from various locations of the city. On Thursday afternoon, within two hours of intimation, the fire officials rescued a family of four, including a woman and three children, who was stuck on the ground floor of their house in Harni area of the city as water levels increased to four feet. After their message for help was circulated on social media, a team of the fire officials reached the society and rescued them on a boat.