An aerial view of a flood-affected village in Kendrapada district. (PTI)

Kendrapara, Sept. 12: Thousands of people in flooded villages of this worst-hit district are marooned and battling against hunger and disease.

With floodwaters impeding relief and rescue work, things are going from bad to worse in more than 50 gram panchayats of the worst-hit Garadpur, Marshaghai, Mahakalpada, Tirtol and Kujang blocks. Thirty-six hours after the flood began, reports of people perched on rooftops without food and water are trickling in.

An estimated 50,000 are marooned in Garadpur and Marshaghai areas and rescue teams have started venturing into the turbulent floodwaters. In all, more than two lakh people are marooned in the district and the swelling waters are threatening another 45,000.

The worst hit gram panchayats are Bacharai, Bandhakata, Raghavpur, Akhua, Antei, Batira, Mangarajpur, Padmapur, Tikhiri, Ameipala, Nadiabarei, Tikanpur, Patalipanka, and Teragaon.

Around 30 flood-hit people are stranded on the top of a building in Beula village under Raghavpur gram panchayat since Sunday morning. They have no food and drinking water. Drenched in incessant rain, most of them have fallen sick. No rescue team has reached them yet. The building is battling a strong current and may collapse any moment.

(Top) A shelter home partially submerged by floodwater at Patalipanka village in Kendrapara district. A rescue boat surveys the affected areas. Telegraph pictures

“The floodwater has posed stumbling blocks to the relief and rescue operation in many of the affected places.

The strong current is making things difficult for the boat operators carrying relief materials. Air-dropping of relief packets began today in cut-off areas such as, Marshaghai, Garadpur and Mahakalpada,” said Kendrapara collector Pradipta Kishore Pattnaik.

Similar reports are coming in from cut-off villages such as, Antei, Bhagabanpur, Akhua and others. Around 150 villagers are staying at the Pentha-Bandhakata school-cum-cyclone shelter building and no relief has reached them till the filing of this report.

“Two relief boats capsized yesterday because of the strong currents. This is why many cut-off villages still remain out of bounds for the relief and rescue teams,” said a member of Orissa Disaster Rapid Action Force.

The shortage of boats has also proved a major problem for the rescue and relief work. The administration here has 290 boats including 90 motorized ones. But this number is not enough considering the number of stranded people.

The shortage of relief materials has also not helped. Chaos reigns in the worst-hit Garadpur, Marshaghai and Mahakalpada block headquarter offices. The officials in charge of relief distribution are nowhere to be seen and the relief stock in several places was allegedly looted.