Amid heavy rains, over 400 devotees stranded in flood-hit areas of Alandi in Maharashtra’s Pune district were rescued in a joint effort and later shifted to safety on Monday.
This happened after the Indrayani river inundated several parts of the pilgrimage town, PTI quoted officials as saying.
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The district administration informed that rescue teams evacuated a total of 408 devotees from various places in Alandi. This included 220 from the Dnyaneshwari Mandir area, 100 from Indrayani Nagari, 60 from Thakurbuwa Mandap and 28 from Gopalpura.
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Besides them, they also rescued devotees stranded at other locations and shifted them to safer places.
The rescue teams comprised civic administration, police, fire brigade, the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) as well as the disaster management personnel.
Meanwhile, they have also shifted about 150 cattle from inundated areas to safer locations.
This comes after the district administration in Pune asked Warkaris and devotees to avoid entering Alandi, since the Indrayani River was overflowing and had already submerged all four bridges leading into the temple town.
It happened ahead of the upcoming ‘palkhi’ (palanquin) procession of Sant Dnyaneshwar Maharaj.
Notably, the IMD had earlier issued a ‘red alert’ for Pune on Monday and warned of heavy rains in the region.
“All four bridges over the Indrayani River providing access to Alandi have submerged due to flooding. It is not safe to travel to the town at present,” the administration stated in a release, according to PTI.
Devotees were asked to stay away from the riverbed, ghats and bridges.
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