Coastal Andhra Pradesh received 68% deficit rain: Met officials

Visakhapatnam: Last month was the warmest May on record, Meteorology experts said.

Officials of the Cyclone Warning Centre (CWC), Visakhapatnam, stated that the nine coastal districts should have received average rainfall of 28 mm in the last week till Monday, but they only received 3 mm. These coastal districts should have received 56 mm of rainfall from June 1 to June 23, but received only 18 mm.

Prof. Bhanu Kumar, emeritus professor in Oceanography and Meteorology, Andhra University, said that since the Bay of Bengal monsoon system was not strong enough to bring rains, rain-bearing systems such as troughs of low pressure and monsoon depressions would be the major sources to bring rainfall to the state in the coming weeks. He said that the AP coast had received 68 per cent deficit rainfall from June 1.

Visakhapatnam district collector, Solomon Arokiaraj, said on Tuesday that revenue officials had reported that 17 people had died so far due to the heat wave in the district.

He said the details of the deaths had been sent to the state government for providing financial assistance to the bereaved families adding that they had initially made arrangements for distributing assistance to nine families at Rs 1.50 lakh to each family including '50,000 from the Apadhbandhu scheme and Rs 1 lakh from the CM’s relief fund.

The collector also said that the administration had been making efforts to control malaria and that the disease was under control now.