Malin/Ambegaon: Heavy rains, which lashed the State on Saturday night, caused cracks in many newly constructed houses, steps and roads in the newly rehabilitated village of Malin. 

The village was devastated when a landslide caused due to heavy rains destroyed half of Malin on July 31, 2014. Around 67 of the families, which lost everything in the disaster, were handed over their rightful homes in the rehabilitated locality in Ambegaon tehsil on April 2 this year. 

However, locals are said to have been disappointed as the first heavy downpour itself has caused damage to the project, which Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had claimed to be the ‘model’ for rehabilitation.

“Ambegaon received heavy rainfall on Saturday. In three to four hours, the place received 97 mm. With such heavy rains, we had anticipated some damage to houses and internal roads,” said District Collector Saurabh Rao. A senior officer said that as the houses were built by levelling the ground with additional soil, caving in of the ground was expected.  

“The walls of the houses haven’t cracked. The safety walls built in the locality, roads and the steps of the houses have developed a few cracks. As we had anticipated this, we kept part payments to our contractors on hold, so that if anything happened in the monsoon, we could make the contractors do the needful for damage control,” he added.

He also said that there was no situation of panic among the villagers as even they were intimated of the possible damage during monsoon when they were handed over the houses. Rao also said that the government will ensure repair of the houses. 

He added, “We are expecting more damage because this is just the beginning of the monsoon season. If there are more instances of such heavy rainfall, there could be be more damage, but we will help the villagers.” 

A team from the Public Works Department, Revenue Department and Zilla Parishad officers is on the spot to assess the situation, Rao said. (With inputs from Agencies)