KAKINADA: The flood situation continues to remain serious in the erstwhile East and West Godavari districts. More than 312 villages were still marooned in Alluri Sitarama Raju, Eluru, BR Ambedkar Konaseema and West Godavari districts.
These areas were cut off from main centres like mandal headquarters and towns. Officials of East Godavari district were on alert as the waters entered Maddurilanka village.
All the causeways at Appanapalli, Mukteswaram (Ainavilli Lanka) in Konaseema, Kanakayalanka in West Godavari, the main roads towards Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Telangana in Chinturu in ASR districts have been inundated.
The flood waters were flowing over the bridges in Chinturu mandal as Sokileru rivulet was overflowing and inundating several areas. Due to inundation of Appanapalli causeway, the Lord Sri Venkateswara Swamy Temple there has been closed.
More than 30,000 people in these districts have been made shelterless by the floods. They have moved to safer places. However, the people of islet villages in Konaseema district refused to quit their habitations though water encircled the villages. They were seen moving on boats to fetch essential commodities.
The people in the flood-hit villages requested the officials to provide them candles, generators, milk and drinking water. SDRF and NDRF teams reached all the affected mandals for rescuing the affected people. The police and revenue officials were distributing the essentials to the victims in some places with the help of NDRF and SDRF teams.
The sea across the coast has become red due to the flow of flood waters from River Godavari. A huge quantity of garbage mingled with the sea from the Godavari water flows. Konaseema collector Himanshu Shukla along with RDO Mukkanti and P Gannavaram MLA Kondeti Chittibabu visited flood-affected areas in Ainavilli mandal on Sunday.
He said that 30 villages in nine mandals have been inundated and 749 families affected. Over 7o rehabilitation centres have been set up and “all facilities have been provided.” He said swimmers, boats etc were getting ready and water packets were being supplied to the flood victims.
Alluri Sitharama Raju district collector Sumit Kumar said 250 villages were affected due to the floods in four mandals -Chinturu, Yetapaka, Kunavaram and VR Puram- and as many 23,000 families have been affected.
He said 4,000 families out of the 8,500 at Chintur, 4,000 families out of 8,500 in V.R.Puram, 6,000 families out of 8,000 families and 10 per cent of the families in Yetapaka mandal have been affected. The floodwaters encircled 5,000 houses, he said.
The collector said flood relief works were being expedited from Saturday. They would be supplied milk, kerosene, 35,000 candles, tarpaulins etc. Power supply was stopped in the flood-affected areas until the flood situation improved.
Joint collector of Eluru, Lavanya Veni, told the media in Eluru on Sunday that 45 villages have been inundated in Velerupadu and Kukkunur mandals. Some 13,764 people from 4,779 families in these villages were affected, of which 9,166 have been taken to 12 relief camps. “Food, drinking water, sanitation and other facilities were being provided to 4,275 families in these camps and the remaining people went to their relatives' houses or other places.”
She said 16 medical camps have been operational in these camps. These gave treatment to 464 people till now. Some 119 pregnant women have been identified, out of which nine were admitted to various community health centres.
She said 11.69 lakh water packets have been distributed and two rescue boats are getting ready for operations in the merged mandals.
West Godavari collector P Prashanti said 21 low-lying areas in the district were inundated. Some 12,806 people from 2,144 families have been affected due to the floods. Some 133 pregnant women and 138 lactating women as also their infants have been shifted to safer places and 25 medical camps have been set up in the relief camps.
He said five teams of fire department were on the job to rescue the affected people.
