Hyderabad: The death toll due to the incessant rains lashing Andhra Pradesh for the last five days rose to 42 with the authorities on Sunday reporting 10 more deaths.
Five people were also missing while crops in about 800,000 hectares of land were damaged in the floods caused by heavy rains under the impact of low pressure area and northeast monsoon.
Officials said the rains left thousands homeless, inundated hundreds of villages, damaged houses, roads and railway tracks. The loss is estimated to be Rs172.7 billion.
Deaths in rain-related incidents like wall collapses and drownings were reported from 10 districts.
Guntur district accounted for eight deaths, Nalgonda seven and Prakasam six. Four people were killed in Mahabubnagar and three each in Hyderabad, Kurnool, Vizianagaram, Chittoor and West Godavari districts. Two deaths were reported from Warangal district.
According to the disaster management department, 84,769 people have been evacuated. The authorities opened 225 relief camps. Over 21,000 houses were damaged in 19 districts.
Nineteen teams of National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) have been deployed in various districts for rescue and relief operations.
Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy reviewed the situation at a meeting with ministers and top officials in Hyderabad on Sunday. He directed the officials to take up relief measures on a war footing.
He noted that though rains started receding on Sunday, they damaged crops over 799,000 hectares. The damaged crops include cotton over 407,000 hectares and paddy 348,000 hectares. Other crops like maize, groundnut, redgram, sugarcane, tobacco and blackgram were also damaged.
The heavy rains caused breaches to 1,020 minor irrigation tanks and damaged roads up to a length of 4,047 kilometres.
The rains cut road links to many villages and disrupted traffic between various cities and towns. The movement of trains was also hit with railway tracks coming under flood water in Nalgonda and Srikakulam districts.
The state government has deployed 580 medical teams to provide aid to the victims.
Meanwhile, the flood situation in Odisha, continued to remain grim on Sunday, mainly in worst-hit Ganjam district, the Ground Zero, as the death toll rose to 19.
“All the deaths were due to wall collapse and drowning,” Special Relief Commissioner P K Mohapatra said.
The low pressured induced rains led to fresh floods in Budhabalang river in Mayurbhanj district with water gushing into district headquarters town of Baripada and 50 villages, official source said.
In Khurda district, breaches occurred near Patapur, Manikapur, Achutarajpur and Srinibaspur of Banapur area after the Salia Dam overflowed, the sources said.
The very heavy rainfall damaged 96 distribution transformers of the Central Electricity Supply in the district.
A population of 1.6 million people were affected in 10 districts, as over 60 villages remained marooned in worst-hit Ganjam, the sources said.
The state government was hopeful that the situation would improve soon as the severity of the week-long rains started declining in most areas.
“Though most parts of coastal Odisha are experiencing rain, the intensity has reduced and the situation will gradually improve,” Revenue and Disaster Management Minister Surya Narayan Patro said.
