Key gas plants shut due to floods
By agencies   |   Thursday, 10 August 2006, 19:30 IST
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NEW DELHI: The flood situation in Western India seems to have extended its tentacles of misery to other regions as well. The incessant rains have caused the closure of several gas plants and petrochemical factories in western India, resulting in shortage in other parts of the country. Causing scores of deaths in affected areas and destruction of property worth millions, and forcing some 650,000 people from their homes, the disaster is being recorded as among the worst flood crisis to hit India in quite some time. The Indian media has been constantly broadcasting images of the helpless victims, across the world, displaying the pitiful sight people stranded on rooftops or wading through the water in search of a respite from the condition. The heavy rains and the releasing of the excess water from the dams have led to increasing anguish of the residents of the regions where numerous people have been killed and hundreds of thousands displaced in recent days. At least 145 people have died in the past week with heavy rains lashing western and southern states of Maharashtra, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh. Several low-lying areas in Bombay, India's financial hub and Maharashtra's capital, remain flooded, as people struggled through murky waters in villages and cities while air force helicopters and naval boats tried to rescue those stranded. Being hit by the worse flood in 15 years, Gujarat was under 80 percent underwater as the floods affected nearly 3.5 million people living in and around the city of Surat state. Several energy and fertilizer companies witnessed a standstill to their production in the city of Hazira in Gujarat. Oil & Natural Gas Corp. closed its plant in the city that supplies most of the gas used in northern India, while Reliance Industries also closed several petrochemical plants and could take up to a week for complete restoration to happen. Both the states are facing the highest calamities due to these years' monsoons and will be visited by the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

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