Heavy rain over the past week has left a trail of destruction in Andhra Pradesh. At least 29 people have lost their lives, with 3,230 villages in 16 districts affected and 7,000 houses damaged, even as the State Government has launched an intense relief and rescue operations. The rains, due to a low pressure area developed over the Bay of Bengal, has triggered flooding in rivers in the coastal Andhra and Rayalseema region, leaving over 6 lakh hectares of crop inundated. The State Government has evacuated 72,000 people and put them up in 178 relief camps. So far, 12 teams of the National Disaster Response Force have been deployed in these districts.

Cotton crop

Normal life has been impacted and several trains from Hyderabad to Kolkata via the coastal districts have been cancelled or diverted. Road travel too has been severely hit, especially on the Hyderabad-Vijayawada highway. People were stranded in vehicles rendered immobile by the rains and severe traffic jams on State highways.

In the Telangana region, life has been thrown out of gear in most of the 10 districts , low lying areas have been submerged and cotton crop has been extensively impacted. Water levels in the Nagarjuna Sagar and Srisailam reservoirs are also rising.

In addition to cotton, paddy, maize, corn, sugarcane and red gram have taken in hit. The hopes raised by a good monsoon for an expected bumper harvest seemed to have been dashed and farmers’ woes are mounting.

The Met Department has forecast heavy to moderate rains over the next 24 hours. With many villages submerged, roads links cut off, canals breached, portions of old buildings collapsing, the district authorities have a tough task ahead.

In Hyderabad and surrounding areas, water level at the Hussainsagar lake has touched the brim, posing a danger to surrounding low-lying areas .

>somasekhar.m@thehindu.co.in

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