While the relief efforts were mostly focused on the city of Visakhapatnam, and all the VIPs were heading towards the city, the rural areas, specially the tribal belt, remain in the dark.
With the telecommunication towers and electricity transmission network in complete shambles, many villages in the tribal areas specially between Araku and Paderu were cut off from outside world. Even at the places where mobile network was available, the people were not able to contact their near and dear ones as they were unable to recharge their mobile in the absence of power.
At some places they have to shell out the money to get the mobile recharged from generators. Some innovative minds have found another solution by recharging their batteries by running motorcycles.
Mobile phones, which proved to be lifeline for these remote tribal areas in normal circumstances, have now turned out to be a weak link in the chain in case of a major crisis like a natural calamity.