NDRF team celebrates Independence Day amid rescue, relief operations in Varanasi

Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh) [India], August 16 (ANI): The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) personnel celebrated Independence Day on Sunday even as rescue and relief operations continued in flood-hit Varanasi.
NDRF celebrated the occasion by distributing sweets among the personnel.
On floods, Swaraj Kamal, an NDRF official said: "A week back as Ganga river water level went up, low lying areas in Varanasi got flooded. It was important to evacuate people and provide them relief material. NDRF started their work for that with the cooperation of district officials. We provided every help possible to people. No instances of deaths or house collapses have been reported so far"
"District administration of Varanasi is alert. Boats and other materials were arranged. We worked on their directions to provide people with plenty of relief material. Water is receding and the Municipality team is active. It will do sanitization here. This is the time of Covid and evacuating and providing relief to people is a challenge, which NDRF did. No casualties or injuries so far within the citizens or our teams have been reported," said Devendra Kumar, another NDRF official.
Devendra also praised the work ethic of the NDRF workers, calling them the 'unsung heroes, and said that it was their duty to keep encouraging them.
The local residents also appreciated the NDRF for their efforts to keep people safe.
"Our house is flooded, there is no electricity. We get boats for movement. There are 5 people in our household. We are not facing any problems except the flood-water," said a resident.
"Our house is flooded. There are 6 people in our family, 3 people at home right now. We are facing no difficulties. The administration is doing a great job. We are being provided with everything we need. Thank you NDRF for helping. We had no tensions because of your efforts," said another local resident.
A local Lekhpal informed ANI about the efforts taken by the administration.
"There are 500 houses in our circle. If we take more areas, then maybe 1,000 houses. We get relief material from the government and we provide people with that via NDRF boats. There are 7 boats in total, 4 of them are wooden," he said.
He also said that the flood situation was there for a week and will take four to five more days for the flood water to recede.
Earlier on August 12, the water level of River Ganga crossed the danger mark, flooding the low-lying areas.
On August 11, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had a conversation with the Varanasi administration in which he assured all possible support to them. (ANI)