After four days of heavy downpour and warning of a wet spell for another three days, Andhra Pradesh is facing one of the worst and most widespread floods in its history. Fifteen of the 23 districts are reeling under the unprecedented rain and floods under the influence of Northeast monsoon and low pressure area in the Bay of Bengal.
The heavy rain continued to wreak havoc across the State; leaving towns after towns inundated thousands of villages flooded forcing nearly 70,000 people to move to relief camps, the weather officials have warned more heavy rain over the next three days. Over 45,000 people were evacuated in Srikakulam and another 11,000 in Guntur. More than 3,000 houses have been damaged, officials said.
More than 17 people have died over the last four days. The incessant rains have thrown the normal life out of gear forcing the authorities to close educational institutions and also suspend the bus services at many places in view of the flooding of roads. The Indian Meteorological Department has issued a warning of highest level in coastal Andhra region which was already battered by heavy rain over the last four days. The IMD said that the low pressure in the Bay of Bengal had now moved from Rayalaseema towards Telangana and was likely to remain stationary over the region for the next 24 hours and thereafter again take a turn towards coastal Andhra.
The rain and floods have damaged the standing crop of paddy and tobacco over an area of more than four lakh acres, mostly in the coastal districts of Prakasham, Guntur, East and West Godavari, Visakhapatanam, Vijayanagaram and Srikakulam.State Agriculture Commissioner Madhusudhan Rao said that crops over an area of 4.34 lakh acres was damaged in 15 districts. It included 2.75 lakh acres of paddy.
Hundreds of houses were also damaged as water entered the low lying areas. Several major towns including Srikakualm, Kakinada, Ongole, Bapatla, Eluru and Nalgonda were under water.Situation in Telangana also took a grim turn over the last 24 hours as rain water flooded districts of Mehbubnagar and Nalgonda washing away the major roads. Road traffic came to a halt between Hyderabad and Srisailam as flood water had submerged the roads.
Similarly, Musi was overflowing and submerged the road affecting the traffic flow between Hayatnagar and Ghatkesar.With most of the major irrigation projects reaching the maximum levels authorities were discharging the water. It also resulted in inundation of low lying areas. In Nalgonda district alone, 65 irrigation tanks breached causing floods. Roads were damaged at 100 different places.
Nagarjuna Sagar, one of the biggest in the State, had reached the maximum level. As inflows touched 116,000 cusecs, authorities were discharging about 50,000 cusecs from the project. Water level was also going up at Jurala, Srisailam and Prakasham barrage, all across the Krishna River.