In Chinchpur Dhage: the river took it all

“The cloud burst in the night and washed away everything… see for yourself. Everything has been washed away. We lost our house and four cattle. Just everything…” Shreekaval Bharat More is speaking as she shows us around her house of tin walls and sheds. “The water was up to our waist. Our son called and woke us up so we were saved. But that water,“ she adds.

More mavshi managed to stack whatever she could save on metal racks in the house. The mud floor of the house has been washed away leaving behind a sandy and uneven floor.

On September 21, 2025, Chinchpur Dhage in Bhum block of Dharashiv (formerly Osmanabad) received torrential rain. The village sits on the banks of the Banganga river, a tributary of the Godavari. The next day, on September 22 also it rained hard through the night. The village was submerged in water. “Never witnessed such a thing in our entire life,” is how people described the deluge.

Suryakant More shows us the river, the fields alongside the banks have all been washed away, including his two grape orchards of one acre each. “We could save our cattle in a nick of time. They were neck deep in water. I let them loose and they survived,” More says. “But all that was stored in the tin shed got soaked. Sacks of jowar, moong [green gram], udid [black gram] and groundnut, everything. All kadba, fodder in the form of jowar or maize stalks has been washed away.”

More had planted onion in one and half acres. The entire field is now only rocks and stones. All the onion saplings with the fertile layer of top soil were swept away by the gushing waters.

The fields on the left side of main road belong to Siddheshwar Bhagwan Dhage, a senior resident in his sixties. He lived on the farm. “The water had such force that it uprooted the trees which fell on my vineyard. The entire structure is broken,” he says. The vineyard was planted in 1995. “We had harvested udid. That too was swept away.”

The two consecutive nights of September 21 and 22 brought torrential rains in the region. “It started pouring at 8 p.m. on September 21and it rained till 10 in the morning,” says Ganesh More. “Someone from the village called us at 1:30, after midnight and so we got up. The question was whether to save our children or cattle. And we lost four heads. Two buffaloes and two Jersey cows. All of them milch animals.”

Satish Tambe was trying to reach his father on the phone after the excessive rain on the first day. “I have been trying to contact him for days,” he tells us on September 23, 2025, when we visited his village. “Now I know that the mobile network tower had shut down and no one could be contacted.” The road connecting the village to the main road was partially washed away and no vehicle could come out for a day. “For two days, there was no electricity as well,” Tambe, of Chinchpur Dhage village tells us.

The Chinchpur Dhage-Walwad road is the only road connecting the neighbouring villages - Belgaon, Pimpalgaon, Karandi, Bhogalgaon, Walwad, Chumbli, Sade Sangvi and Ganegaon. According to Vishal Sarjerao Dhage, Sarpanch of Chinchpur Dhage, “after two days of rain, Sade Sangvi is engulfed in water, no one can reach. The bridge towards Belgaon is swept away. No one can reach there. Around 200-250 families have lost all contact with other villages.” One could see a group of people standing on the broken bridge and talking to people on this side of the river.

The Maharain portal shows that this year – June 1 to September 30, 2025 – Marathwada had received 949.3 mm of rain as against the normal 679.5 mm. In many tehsils, the rain began in the month of May which had in fact delayed the sowing season as fields were waterlogged. Dharashiv district receives 603 mm of rain in this period. But this year it was recorded at 974.7 mm – 161.5 per cent above average rainfall. The highest rainfall was recorded in the month of September.

Bhum block where Chinchpur Dhage is located has had record breaking rainfall in September. Bhum receives 190.9 mm on an average every year. In 2024, it was 161.9 mm and this year, it has recorded 514.4 mm of rain which is 320.8 per cent over the average for the month of September.

“Mandirachya shikharala paani lagala hota. [The water reached the top of the temple]” says Dhage. A few men gathered under the banyan tree in front of the Maruti temple. “For two days, water was flowing at that height,” they say showing water marks on the temple wall and that of the ICDS centre on the west – around 11-12 feet high. The centre was locked so we could not see the damage inside. But later (on September 30) the ICDS worker, Jivita Patil told us on phone that the flood washed away all the items and records in the Anganwadi. “There is not a single register left for keeping records. Tiffin boxes, plates and bowls… everything is gone,” says Jivita tai.

On a bench near the banyan tree, Kasturabai Chavan sat listlessly. “Meeth mirachicha dabba suddha gela vaahun. The river took it all…even the salt-spice box,” she says. The tin shed that she and her husband live in has been washed away completely. Ironsmiths by profession, the old couple has lost all their tools. “We lost all clothes, pots and pans. I had three grams of gold and four silver toe rings. That was all that I had.” Since last two days, Kasturabai and her husband, Eknath Chavan, 75, are at people’s mercy. Neighbours are taking turns feeding them. Their daughter and her husband arrived from Ahilyanagar (previously Ahmadnagar) to offer support.

A small tin shed with a broken, half open door worked as a hair cutting salon for Shahaji Bapu Sangle, 75. The non-descript place was filled with silt. Apart from one broken wooden chair there is nothing left. “I lived off this work,” says Sangle. He shared that after transferring two acres of farmland each to both his sons, this was his only source of income.

As the river waters gushed in the village and entered its small lanes, many emergencies unfolded. A woman in labour reached the government primary health sub centre for childbirth only to find a gaping hole in the road, just near the entrance gate. Ms. A B Thite, ANM with the health centre had to take the woman to the nearest PHC and assist her in childbirth. “The rain was incessant. In that, we had to shift the woman who underwent childbirth in the wee hours today.” She had called her seniors at Bhum and was waiting for further instructions. There is no other way to access the clinic. The road in front too has been partially washed away.

Bhum is known for its milk and dairy products, mainly khava (khoya). Many villagers in Chinchpur and the vicinity rear cattle and send milk to collection centres in Bhum. “For the last two days we have not been able to transport milk,” says Babasaheb Kature, a respected name in the village. “We have six dairies in Chinchpur and around 5,000 to 6,000 litres of milk is collected here and transported to Bhum. The floods have damaged the main road. The vehicles haven’t entered the village for two days,” he shares. Many farmers tend cattle and supplement their income through milk and milk products.

“We may have lost around 200 to 250 heads of cattle in this flood,” Kature tells us. “But it hit no one as badly as it did this one farmer from Pimpalgaon.” He is referring to Vishwanath Datkhile. The river changed its course and the flood waters drowned his entire cattle shed with 27 cows and calves, all tied securely to poles. They could not escape. “The misery doesn’t end there. The dead cattle were swept away in the flood the next day,” he says.

Many young farmers were also trying their luck with the dairy business. Amol Dhage lost his six cows, one buffalo and one calf. “It is not just the animals, I have also lost 2000 stalks of kadba (fodder), Kadba Kutti [fodder cutting] machine worth Rs. 45,000 and the milking machine, too.” The loss is in lakhs. Many farmers gathered there told us how they have lost their cattle, some two and some four animals.

Goats and sheep too drowned and were swept away. Bhairavnath Shinde narrates what happened. “I went to our farm with my wife and found that everything was washed away. The shed was swept away with no sign of goats. I could see a few tins of the roof at a distance,” says Shinde. “We never had any trouble with the river. But this year, ‘khoritala tala’ burst and that caused the flooding. The gushing waters swept all that came in the way.” He refers to a minor irrigation tank on the upstream that was built around 10 years back.

Many farmers had toiled hard and saved money to try their luck with horticulture. Vineyards, pomegranate and superior quality guava orchards fetched good money. The loss is huge. Shreeram Dhage had his vineyard of 15 acres. “It is completely washed away. The metal structure was uprooted along with its cement foundation,” says Dhage.

Suhas Ganesh Dhage and his younger brother Keshav were into this kind of farming. After his father’s death it was Suhas who was looking after their farm. “He has lost an entire guava orchard. Around 1,000 trees with fruit ready for market in the coming week. All that is now flattened by the floods.” It is painful for people to share this with us.

Along with this, Suhas has lost his soybean crop on two acres and a small patch of pomegranate trees. The floods have also swept his small tractor and power transformer.

We couldn’t meet Suhas. Why? The young chap is fighting for his life in a hospital in Solapur. “He was bitten by a snake three weeks ago. Nothing worked in local clinics so he was admitted there. He has undergone five rounds of dialysis,” shares Kature. “We are yet to tell him of this flood.” Keshav’s empty face and sunken eyes were enough to express the shock and the trauma.

Along with the fields and standing crop, more than 100 solar pumps with panels were swept away. Drip and sprinkler sets used to save water were taken away by the raging river. And all the wells are now filled with silt and bushes brought by the flood.

But it is not just the rain that caused such havoc.

There are three minor irrigation tanks on the upstream of Banganga river. “All three, at Ware Wadgaon, Sablewadi and Burudwadi gave away and all the water gushed into the river. With that there was incessant rain,” explains Suraj Dhage. “The water started rising on the 21st morning and receded only on the 23rd [September] early morning.” There is one KT (Kolhapur Type) weir on the east of Chinchpur road. “The gates were not opened in the summer. The flood water brought with it trees, bushes and other garbage. That led to the blockage.” The river found its new course and entered the fields and the village. The natural route is about 500 meters away from the main village.

People are wise and capable of finding out reasons for such devastation.

“If you ask me, till the 1980s, all the lands on the river bank were fallow. These were secured for grazing. These are now under cultivation,” Suryakant More’s brother explains it to us. “There are encroachments on the river plain.”

What do women have to say about this flood?

“Tai, our village follows gosha,” they tell us.

The gosha system is one where women from ‘upper’ caste Hindu families do not interact with outsiders, particularly men. It is still followed in many villages in Marathwada. Women have to cover their head with their saree, and no one can see their faces.

“All of us are part of one clan. Our women do not come out of the house when men are talking,” two men proudly quip.

The river took it all. But did it really? The age-old restrictions remain untouched.

Postscript

The district collectorate informed on October 3, 2025 that all 42 circles in Dharashiv district have received excess rainfall and around 4,49,689 hectares of farmland has been damaged of which 8,000 hectares has been completely washed away. Around 221 roads, 146 percolation tanks and 19 other water storage tanks have suffered damage; 70-80 per cent of government schools have been damaged in the rain and floods.