The State was blanketed with cloudy weather on Friday as it came under the influence of a “trough of upper air circulation” that lay over the interior Karnataka up to far south covering border areas in Andhra Pradesh, while no place received any rainfall for the day.
Sky remained overcast throughout the day at almost all places in the State. Day temperatures dipped to new lows as the State was already passing through winter.
Meanwhile, the Disaster Management Department stated that heavy rains in 19 districts have affected nearly 10,000 weavers whose handlooms/powerlooms have been damaged. With respect to fishermen, it said that as many as 2,180 boats and fishing nets had been damaged.
Additional Disaster Management Commissioner Vinod Kumar Ekbote said that the damage to irrigation sources, either by way of breaches or erosions of the bunds was extensive. Out of the total, 2,287 irrigation sources have already been identified for repairs and restoration. Of them, 1,905 are minor irrigation sources, 664 are major ones and 18 medium sources. An update on the situation in the affected areas prepared by the department shows that the number of casualties had reached 44 with another death coming to light from East Godavari, while those still remaining in the 270 relief camps had dwindled to 1.5 lakh. A distressing fact is that 44 lift irrigation schemes, which have costly motors and pumpsets equipments too suffered damage.
