Villagers make cattle wade through an inundated land in Tirtol blocks of Jagatsinghpur district. Telegraph picture

Bhubaneswar, Aug. 11: The state government has focused on restoration and construction in the flood-hit areas.

Chief minister Naveen Patnaik today directed officials to take up repair of breaches on a war footing. As many as 38 breaches had occurred on various river embankments during the current spell of floods.

The water resources department will take up repair of breaches on the embankments, while works department and other related departments will start repair and restoration of the damaged roads.

Around four lakh people at 304 villages of six coastal districts of Puri, Jajpur, Kendrapara, Jagatsinghpur, Cuttack and Bhadrak districts remain marooned. The government today claimed that relief materials and polythene sheets were provided to the marooned people.

The officials were instructed to gear up sanitation, safe drinking water supply and health care measures in the flood-hit areas as there is a fear of outbreak of water-borne diseases.

Officials of the rural development department were asked to disinfect the water sources, including the tube wells and provide water pouches and safe drinking water through tankers.

Reports from the flooded villages in Jagatsinghpur district said that since past four days people in riverside villages of Tirtol and Kujang blocks had remained cut off following a breach on the Paika river embankment on August 8.

“Recession of water has made things perturbing for us. Boats have been turned unfit to navigate on shallow water,” said Kolara villager Kartik Mallick.

“Flood-affected villagers are being forced to wade through the knee-deep waters thereby exposing themselves to drowning in places where water level is deep. Fear of snake bite is also a possibility,” he said.

Kotha Sahi villager Mahendra Jena said: “Drinking water has become scarce. The tube well source of water has got submerged. Everybody is rushing to the marooned villages with relief but mostly without water pouches. To fetch potable water, we are moving in a boat to the lone tube well, which has not got flooded.”

Sailo sarpanch Sishir Kumar Dash blamed the water resources department for the breach on the Paika river dam. “This area has encountered three high flood in the past in 2001, 2008 and 2011. Disaster was destined to recur this time. There was an urgent need to refurbish the embankment and increase its height. But that never took place. The flood control measures are confined to paper only,” he said.

Kujang tehsildar Basudeb Satapathy said: “The district administration will take up the matter with the water resources department to stop the recurring flood and the breach in the embankment. Our emphasis is now on to provide relief to the people till the water completely recedes from the places.”