Repalle town in Guntur district was flooded on Wednesday morning as water from the Krishna flowed through almost all its areas after its right flood bank breached near Voleru on Tuesday.
Motorised boats were deployed in the town, which has a population of 60,000 while APSRTC buses plied from the main bus station to the outskirts to ferry passengers to safer places. Minister for Major Industries Kanna Lakshminarayana, Special officer Luv Agarwal, Collector P. Ramanjaneyulu and Superintendent of Police S. B. Bagchi were camping in the town to oversee relief operations.
They said that water would recede from the town by evening as the flow of water from the point where the flood bank breached was sought to be regulated. The railway station, the bus station and the Repalle church lay under knee-deep water.
Meanwhile, the discharge from Prakasam Barrage across the Krishna in Vijayawada fell from 10.8 lakh cusecs on Tuesday to seven lakh cusecs this morning providing relief to people living in hundreds of villages downstream. Diviseema, an area close to the Bay of Bengal, is now out of danger, officials said.
In Vijayawada city, people were returning from the relief camps to their homes in low-lying areas which were inundated three days ago while farmers upstream of the barrage began work to save the crops wherever they were partially damaged. Officials said there was no longer any threat of breaches to the flood banks or to the canal bunds in the delta region.
Traffic on National Highway (NH) 9 connecting Hyderabad and Vijayawada was restored as flood water receded from the road at Ibrahmipatnam and a few other places. Similarly, vehicles began moving since Tuesday night on Hyderabad -Bangalore NH 7 after engineers filled the breaches portion of the road near the Tungabhadra bridge.
Meanwhile, Agriculture Minister N. Raghuveera Reddy said that the total damage to agriculture had been estimated at Rs. 1250 crore with food crops accounting for a loss of Rs. 850 crore. He disclosed that paddy production in the State would by hit by 30 per cent on accont of the floods and the kharif yield may not exceed 55 lakh tonnes.
