BHUBANESWAR — The Indian Coast Guard airlifted six people to safety from a flooded primary health centre in Odisha's Ganjam district on Thursday, as Cyclone Arnab continued to impact India's eastern coast, ANI reported. Responding to a distress call from the Ganjam district administration on Thursday morning, the Coast Guard Air Enclave in Bhubaneswar scrambled an ALH Mk-III helicopter despite severe weather conditions.

Source: ANI via Latestly

The aircrew pinpointed the heavily inundated Public Health Centre (PHC) at Jagmohan, where individuals were stranded due to post-storm floodwaters. Executing a precision hover over the submerged area, the crew successfully winched six individuals, including two women, two children and one elderly person, to safety, ANI said. The rescued personnel were airlifted and safely transferred to the Community Health Centre (CHC) in Dharakote.

The Indian Coast Guard began airlifting stranded people from flood- and landslide-hit Ganjam district on Thursday as the Odisha government intensified rescue operations, Swabhimani Odisha reported. Chief Secretary Anu Garg said around 300 villages in Ganjam district had been affected by floods, with 70 villages remaining marooned, and the state government was coordinating with the Union Home Ministry to facilitate air evacuations.

Source: Swabhimani Odisha

Special Relief Commissioner Rajesh P Patil said a Coast Guard helicopter completed its first sortie on Thursday afternoon and further sorties were being undertaken to evacuate people from inaccessible locations, the Odisha outlet reported. With a national highway washed away and train services disrupted, aerial rescue operations have become crucial for reaching affected areas.

The Coast Guard's Regional Headquarters (North East) has placed its air and surface assets on high alert to execute search and rescue (SAR) and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) missions, with ICG aviation assets on standby for round-the-clock aerial surveillance, emergency evacuations and air-dropping of essential relief materials to isolated communities, ANI reported. Earlier, the impact of Cyclone Arnab was widely felt across Gajapati district, where continuous rainfall since Wednesday triggered a flood-like situation in the Mahendratanaya River basin, with floodwaters entering several areas including Baghasala, Bhinnala and Bapuji Peinth in Goshani block.