AP rains toll 21; several villages cut off

Hundreds of villages across Andhra Pradesh remained submerged while road and rail was disrupted by the rain fury which continued to unleash misery for the fifth day today, leaving 21 people dead.

River Krishna was in spate after which 3.15 lakh cusecs of water was being discharged into Bay of Bengal from Prakasam Barrage in Vijayawada.
Floodwater from Peddacheruvu at Kattangur in Nalgonda was overflowing on the Vijayawada-Hyderabad National Highway due to which vehicular traffic was diverted at Suryapet towards Bhuvanagiri and Khammam.
Railway track at Bommayipalli on the Secunderabad-Guntur section was damaged and repairs were being carried out. All important trains on this route are being diverted via Warangal and Vijayawada, official sources said. Roads in different districts along a streth of 900 kilometers were totally battered due to heavy rains in the last five days, throwing traffic out of gear. As many as 117 minor irrigation tanks were damaged in the rain-ravaged districts while tens of village tanks suffered breaches inundating villages and crops. The East Coast Railway has cancelled Bhubaneswar-Bengaluru Prasanthi Express and Bhubaneswar-Visakhapatnam Express trains due to heavy rains. The Puri-Tirupati Express and Coromandel Express were also cancelled, the sources said.
Officials in Disaster Management Department here said the 135 relief camps opened in seven districts were continuing where about 68,000 persons had been evacuated from their homes. Twelve teams of National Disaster Response Force are carrying out relief operations in Srikakulam, Guntur, Nalgonda, Prakasam, Mahbubnagar and West Godavari districts, the sources added.