As floodwaters swamped East Nagpur and civic officials vanished from view, the residents of Sainagar didn’t wait for help — they became the help.
With lanes submerged, homes flooded, and no emergency response in sight, locals pooled ₹7,000 from 12 households and hired a JCB machine themselves. “Children were trapped, and elders couldn’t move. We had no choice,” said Vijay Patil, who contributed ₹500. “We needed action, not promises.”
Sameer Wankhede, a local JCB operator known for responding in crises, arrived within an hour. “It was chaos,” he said. “Water had no place to go. So we created one.” With help from residents, Sameer used the machine’s bucket to unblock choked drains and carve out temporary channels to redirect floodwater into a nearby nullah.
The effort lasted over four hours. Residents like Mehnaz Begum and Suresh Joshi stood in knee-deep water, clearing slush and guiding Sameer’s every move. “He didn’t just do his job — he became one of us,” said Joshi.
While the Nag and Pili rivers had overflowed, backflow was worsened by plastic-choked drains and zero official support. Not a single NMC team reached the area until late evening.
Teacher Sandhya Kale put it bluntly: “If citizens can respond this fast, why can’t the authorities?”
Sainagar may have drained out, but the real flood was of courage, unity — and one JCB operator who showed up when the government didn’t.
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