Amaravati: In Andhra Pradesh, hundreds of vehicles and passengers were stranded, traffic was either closed or suspended in arterial highways and over 100 trains cancelled snapping rail-road link between southern and other parts of the country as the Penna river in spate caused heavy destruction Sunday.
The toll in rain-related incidents in different districts of Andhra Pradesh touched 31 as more bodies were retrieved from the flooded streams. The Chennai-Kolkata National Highway-16 remained cut off for traffic between Nellore and Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh as was the Chennai Grand Trunk rail route severing the all important link between the southern and eastern and northern parts of India.
The South Central Railway informed that more than a 100 express trains were cancelled because of the damage caused to the rail track at Padugupadu near Nellore and 29 more diverted via other routes.
In Kadapa district alone, at least 18 people have died due to the sudden deluge, crops on hundreds of acres destroyed, heads of cattle washed away and tens of houses in villages were reduced to rubble as flash floods due to a breach of the Annamayya project’s earthen bund on Cheyyeru river caused havoc.
In Kadapa city, a mother and child, who were trapped on the second floor of a building were rescued in the nick of time by police and fire services personnel, just before the three-storied building folded like a pack of cards in the wee hours.
Floodwater gushing out from the Veligallu reservoir led to the collapse of a bridge on river Papagni cutting off road link between Kadapa and Anantapuramu districts.
The State Disaster Management Authority said more than two lakh cusecs of floodwater flowed out of the Somasila reservoir in SPS Nellore district, leading to the deluge. This caused breach of the National Highway-16 at Kovuru as well. Consequently, traffic on the NH-16 between Nellore and Vijayawada has been suspended, leaving hundreds of vehicles stranded for kilometers on either side. Hundreds of passengers were stuck in the Nellore RTC bus station as bus services were disrupted.
“It was nothing but gross mismanagement on the part of the administration. Didn’t they know about the flood when there was such heavy rain? Why were we not even alerted about the coming danger before it destroyed us?” angry villagers of Mandapalli and Togurupeta questioned.
“Except for some kind-hearted volunteers, the administration did not come to our help in any way. Ours is the first village right under Annamayya project. We lost our houses, cattle, belongings…everything. Some of our villagers were killed. There is no place for us to go,” the surviving residents of Togurupeta, a hamlet of about 500 people, said.
The temple of the local goddess, which somehow remained intact, has now turned into the only shelter zone for the hapless villagers.
Mandapalli presented a heartrending sight. Two families were completely wiped out as seven people in all were killed in the flood fury. Another family lost two persons. Kadapa district Collector Vijaya Rama Raju said that the dam breach was the major factor that caused such a major calamity. “The river course changed but the dam breach was what caused the real destruction. We still moved some 600 people to safety,” he said. “Yes, it was a major calamity, the scale of which could not be imagined,” Raju added.
