VIJAYAWADA: Commuters heaved a sigh of relief as traffic on the Vijayawada-Hyderabad National Highway partially resumed on Friday evening as the floodwater from the Munneru canal receded, near Ithavaram in the NTR district on Friday. It may be noted that vehicular traffic on NH-65 was suspended on Thursday after floodwater inundated the highway from Keesara toll plaza to Itavaram village.
The canal was overflowing for the past two days with an increase in inflows from the upper catchment areas of Telangana and Maharashtra, leaving no scope for the commuters to pass through the Lingala bridge and the national highway.
With thousands stranded on the NH, NTR district police carried out rescue operations with the help of revenue officials, irrigation and disaster response management forces and shifted over 40 people to safer places. Even as the floodwater began receding by Friday evening, several teams of Nandigama and Kanchikacherla police regulated the traffic towards Vijayawada and Hyderabad.“We allowed vehicles as there is a huge traffic jam up to a distance of over 2 km. It will take at least six hours to bring the situation to normalcy,” said police.
The fields and vacant plots in adjacent villages and other colonies near the Munneru canal remained waterlogged. NTR district CP Kanthi Rana Tata and DCP Ajitha Vejendla inspected the ongoing rescue and relief operations in the flood-hit villages and instructed the villagers to stay on high alert.
Meanwhile, Nandigama police rescued 20 students, who were struck in the floodwater, with the help of a crane and made arrangements for them for their degree exams.