VIJAYAWADA: With increased inflows into the Prakasam Barrage from Pulichintala Project, officials released eight lakh cusecs of water (on Thursday at around 1 am) and sounded red alert in the villages abutting river Krishna. Officials along with police went around the low-lying areas on Thursday, alerting people about the possible inundation and asked them to shift to safer places.
The district administration declared a holiday for the schools of the flood-affected areas in the district. “Do not allow any student to cross the river to reach schools,’’ Krishna District Collector A Md Imtiaz, who held a teleconference with officials over the flood situation, said.The second warning is also likely to be issued soon, the project officials said. The collector asked the officials concerned to have State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) teams ready and deploy them wherever necessary on war-footing to take up relief works.“People residing in the low-lying areas of Bhupesh Gupta Nagar, Enamalakuduru and Kummaripalem were alerted about the floods,” he said.
On Thursday, the inflow into Pulichintala was 64,470 lakh cusecs and the Barrage had 4,60,141 cusecs, while the outflow was 4,40,696 lakh cusecs (by 6 pm). Low-lying areas in the downstream of the barrage were submerged as a result, hampering the tune of life. As a precautionary measure, two days ago, the district administration and municipal corporation officials had instructed the public residing at Ranigari Thota, Geeta Nagar, Balaji Nagar, Yanamalakuduru and Ramalingeswara Nagar, on the banks of river Krishna to shift to rehabilitation centres.
However, some portions of the residents are still not willing to vacate their houses. The residents of Ranigari Thota also demanded the construction of a retaining wall on the banks of the river to prevent water flooding into their houses. After speaking to the revenue, civic body and police officials, they later agreed to vacate their houses for now. Some residents have been reluctant to move out and are still inhabiting in submerged localities. They complained of lack of response from the officials concerned in providing food, medicines and other necessities to them.
Power supply was disrupted from Wednesday in several areas which were inundated due to floods in Krishna Lanka and Yanamalakuduru. Special teams from the electricity department swung into action and restored the power supply in a phased manner. In the Krishna district, the Andhra Pradesh State Disaster Management Authority has positioned SDRF teams in 11 mandals and equipped three IR Boats, 14 Aska lights, 84 lifebuoys, 110 life jackets and 26 ropes. A team of NDRF personnel was deployed in Avanigadda, in the preliminary damage reported in three mandals, 315 houses were marooned.
Two relief camps were set up to provide necessary assistance to the flood-affected victims.Pamarru MLA Anil Kumar inspected the inundated Thodelu Lanka village in a boat and urged the villagers to shift to the nearby rehabilitation centres as the mandal remained under threat.The MLA also asked the Krishna District Collector to deploy adequate number of rescue teams to the mandal in order to prevent any untoward incidents from happening.
