Normal life was thrown out of gear as weather system ‘Jawad’ wreaked havoc in Nellore district.
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Road and rail traffic to southern parts of the country were disrupted as railway tracks and the arterial Chennai-Kolkata highway were breached at several places.
As many as 44,275 people were rescued and shifted to 97 relief camps by three units of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and two units of the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) in coordination with the district police, said Collector K.V.N. Chakradhar Babu.
The railway track on the Nellore-Padugupadu section suffered a breach resulting in cancellation of 18 south-bound trains, cancellation of two trains and diversion of 10 other long distance trains to Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram and other places in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka. Over 3,500 passengers travelling by trains from Howrah, Puri and other destinations were stranded in Kavali, Ongole and Chirala en route.
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Vehicles were stranded on the Chennai-Kolkata highway for 12 hours as the highway suffered erosion in Nellore and Kovur. Officials swung into action and restored vehicular traffic on the expressway by afternoon and diverted vehicles coming from Chittoor district to run via Pamur and Darsi in Prakasam district to northern destinations. Engineering staff worked round the clock to plug breaches to 39 minor irrigation tanks which resulted in local inundation.
The district administration had some solace as the Penna river which was in spate bringing a peak flood of 5.5 lakh cusecs following heavy rains in Kadapa, Anantapur and Chitoor districts, pacified by evening. The inflow into Somasila reservoir declined to 1.56 lakh cusecs on Sunday evening, said the Collector after overseeing the rescue and rehabilitation operations in the worst-affected Nellore revenue division along with the Special Officer B. Rajsekhar. Maintaining a flood cushion of 8.70 tmcft, 1.44 lakh cusecs of water was discharged from Somasila reservoir which had 69.30 tmcft of water.
Islampeta in the city was the worst-affected. More than 12,000 people were shifted to relief camps as floodwater entered their homes. The weather system caused misery to people also in the Revenue divisions of Atmakur, Gudur, Kavali and Naidupeta.
The flood-affected people would be provided with ₹25 kg of rice, one kg each of palm oil, red gram, onions and potato, the Collector said, adding a detailed enumeration of the losses would be taken up by the officials of the departments concerned from Monday.