Despite getting some respite from heavy rains and nature’s fury, the low-lying localities and outlying colonies continued to struggle with the flood waters not receding from their habitations all across Nellore city and other parts of the affected areas in the district on Thursday.
The overall property loss till now has been stated to have crossed Rs. 950 crore with the people’s representatives and the authorities currently busy with the task of emptying flood waters from the human habitations.
The localities in either side of the railway track, the mini bypass road and the national highway were badly hit on account of clogged drains and severe water logging problem which saw muddy waters entering houses.
While nearly all localities witnessed knee-deep water on the roads, the severely affected places were waist-deep. In some areas, the owners could not save their cars and four wheelers which were marooned in open air.
Minister for Municipal Administration and Urban Development P. Narayana, who visited the affected areas for the fourth day on Thursday, blamed it on the lack of planning and highly indiscriminate encroachments in all the drains and canals running through the city limits.
At Ramalingapuram, the local residents came out and used earth movers to make vents and outlets for emptying the flood waters from their localities. Even then, the flood waters continued to flow in.
“We could prevent the damage to a certain extent. But careful planning should be made to prevent such large-scale damage,” said L. Raghava Rami Reddy, a resident of Ramamurthynagar adjoining the mini bypass road. Busy places like Old Madras Bus Stand, Gandhi Bomma centres and so on also continued to face flood problems.
At the thickly populated Mansoornagar basthi, about 3,900 residents were evacuated with the help of boats by the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) teams and the local police. The flood water reached a level of 7 feet in this area with some houses almost submerged under water.
The scene was no different at Parameswarinagar, where hundreds of residents were seen bringing their belongings to safer places as the flood waters were unyielding rendering their habitations unfit for living temporarily.
Residents said that they had never seen such huge floods in their residential localities. Initially, they thought the floods would recede in a day or two so that they would be able to return to their homes but the situation seemed to have no respite for another day or two.
District In-charge Minister Sidda Raghava Rao and Irrigation Minister Devineni Umamaheswara Rao visited several flood-hit villages and agricultural areas which witnessed floods in the past 10 days.
“The floods have caused some damage to the tanks and ponds but overall irrigation tanks received copious rains. This would certainly help the farmers this year and in the long run as well with the ground water table considerably recharged. Immediate help is being given to submerged residential localities,” said Mr. Umamaheswara Rao.
Nearly 25 villages and habitations nearer to the sea coast were cut off from the mainland due to breaches in local tanks and roads.
People’s life came to standstill in Tupilipalem, Pamanji, Jameenkothapalem, Gangannapalem and Valamedu.
Officials have estimated that crops were damaged in over 50,000 hectares and the aqua culture farmers were also badly hit in the rains.
Power supply was being restored to 150 villages out of the total 270 villages which were in darkness since the breakout of heavy rains.
We could prevent the damage to a certain extent. But careful planning should be done to prevent such large-scale damage.
L. Raghava Rami Reddy,
Resident of Ramamurthynagar
