JAMMU : Flash floods on the night of 5th Sep and then again on 6TH September, 2014 created
havoc and caused huge losses to SKUAST Jammu University.
The university,
in fact, was affected by flash floods in Balole Nallah and Tawi River. On the intervening night of 5th-6th September, 2014, a massive flash flood in Balole Nallah hit SKUAST-J at Chatha at around 2: 30 PM. Then again at around 3:00 PM on 6th September, 2014 besides sudden rise in Tawi water breached embankment, diverting a huge amount of water towards Chatha Experimental Farm area.
The water from Balole Nallah hit the campus from the front at North-Eastern side and broke the boundary wall at three places, damaging major part of the front boundary wall. The flood water like a river gushed into the premises of the campus towards the Academic and Administrative Blocks and creating ponds within the campus premises. The flood water entered in to offices, class rooms, and Labs, with water levels varying between 1 to 4 feet. It completely damaged all electrical gadgets, expensive laboratory equipments, chemicals, furniture, DG sets, air conditioners, office automation (Photocopiers, Personal Computers, Printers, online UPS), Data Centre, EPABX, ARIS LAB,
Computer Lab providing asses to e-journals (CeRA), and Student Centre (Canteen, Gymnasium, Dining and Recreational Room, Yoga Centre) etc.
Simultaneously, the flood water washed away ten-year old experimental fruit orchard. The university internal roads were badly damaged at several locations. Around a dozen vehicles, including two power tillers and construction material, were also not spared from the fury of floods. The entire area of Boys Hostel site (under construction), sports complex and playground was marooned under a sheet of 4 to 6 feet water.
The flash flood caused extensive damage to few buildings and building foundation besides the damage to infrastructure and other university property. Gushing water had also resulted in deposition of silt, sand, gravels and mud up to a level of 6 inches to one foot in almost all buildings, lawns and roads. In some of the rooms even wooden logs had been deposited at many places, poisonous snakes were seen crawling inside the Academic and Administrative Block. The deposition of silt has resulted in choking of the drainage system of the university. The cleaning of debris deposited due to flash flood will take at least one week for making the Chatha campus operational.
The flood from Tawi entered the Experimental Farm area in the afternoon of 6th Sep, 2014. It inundated the Seed Processing Unit.
Floodwaters from Balole Nallah as well as from Tawi, and also from a perennial rivulet, flowing through the farm, caused extensive damage to state of the art Automatic Weather Observatory (Agrometerology) of the University, located near the University Sports Complex.
The R.S. Pura Campus of the University was marooned under stagnant water in depth varying between 1 to 2 feet which has damaged the entire farm area, lawns, roads of the university and also entered inside the Administrative Block and divisions causing damage to the building, costly equipments, furniture, reagents etc. The ground floor of the Pragati (Girls) Hostel was also marooned under flood water because of which the girls had to be shifted to safer place.
In addition to Chatha and R.S Pura, KVKs and Research Stations elsewhere have also been damaged due to excessive rains and floods. Most hit places are KVK Reasi, Poonch and Rajouri. The scientists at Reasi had to run in emergency to nearby safer place (Dera Baba Banda Bahadur, Tanda Shrine) when the flash flood as high as 8 to 10 feet from the surrounding two mighty rivers (Chenab and Ban Ganga) suddenly entered into the farm area of KVK Reasi, damaging the farm, boundary wall, poultry farm, cow shed and administrative building etc.
It would not be out of place to mention here that Balole Nallah is a perennial stream, running besides the Chatha campus, always keeping the campus under constant threat of flash floods. This is the second time within a short span of four years that the Chatha campus has been damaged by flash floods in Balole Nallah. An emergency meeting of Statutory Officers of the University was called on 7th September, 2014 to assess the losses caused by the flash floods and to take further necessary action. Taking stock of the situation, class work was suspended till 14th September, 2014. Committees were constituted to monitor the losses caused by flash floods, and coordinate restoration of university activities. The exact figures of damage/loss caused by the flash floods at Chatha and other places in SKUAST-J shall be available very soon. However, as per the initial rough estimate the losses may run into tens of crores. The entire staff of the University is trying very hard to bring normalcy in the university.
