Nature’s fury did not appear to have spared even a single family in the town here, with the heavy downpour creating panic in people. It rained heavily in this district headquarters town that was almost submerged with 300 mm of rainfall on a single day.
The rain did not give any relief for the past one week and Sunday’s downpour came as a further blow to the 2.1 lakh population here. Yerrayya (40) died in a wall collapse near YSR Kalyanamandapam, while Chintapalli Yerukudu (35) was killed in Etcherla mandal when thunder hit him.
The condition is expected to worsen further from midnight of Sunday as 90,400 cusecs of water flowed at Srikakulam bridge from Nagavali by 9 pm. Officials say if the flow crosses 1.10 lakh cusecs, it will be problem.
About 25 villages along the river and this town are likely to be affected due to the floods in the Nagavali.
On Sunday evening, District Collector Saurabh Gaur told presspersons that the district administration was geared up to handle the floods. “We are evacuating people from low-lying areas of all the 25 villages, apart from some streets of Srikakulam since the Nagavali will continue to be in spate for two more days, despite respite from rain,” he said. The situation has not yet improved in Tekkali and Palakonda divisions, where the rain that started since Monday last, lessened from Saturday night.
Thankfully the loss of lives was relatively less, but people continued to suffer, with non availability of food, drinking water and electricity. Government appointed 126 medical teams but they were unable to move due to floods. Communicable diseases are expected to spread in flood-affected areas. Ranasthalam mandal was inundated with 222 mm rain fall followed by Ponduru with 155.6 mm. The situation was serious in Laveru, Etcherla and other areas too.
There was a slight improvement in weather conditions in Tekkali division, that was severely hit by rains. While vehicular movement was completely stopped on the Chennai-Kolkata national highway, the running of trains was also disrupted totally.
