Rain havoc in Andhra

The death toll in rain-related incidents in Andhra Pradesh rose to 22, even as heavy rains triggered by Cyclone Nilam continued to lash five coastal districts of Andhra.
Initial reports from the state disaster management authorities stated that over 480 houses were damaged beyond repair and 800 were damaged partially. Nearly 500 kilometres of roads were eaten away and water had entered several houses in the cyclone hit areas.
Normal life was badly affected in Guntur, Krishna, west Godavari, east Godavari and Visakhapatnam districts. “We have never faced such a situation. The water we received in the past two days is more than what we usually get in three months since July,” said Visakhapatnam district collector V Seshadri. Currently, more than 517 villages in Visakhapatnam alone are completely cut off from other areas.Official estimates suggest that standing crop in over 2.5 lakh hectares was also damaged.
In eastern Godavari district, one of the worst-hit by flash floods, about 30,000 people were shifted to relief camps opened by the state. Many villages in the district were marooned due to overflowing rivulets, tanks, streams and reservoirs. Relief operations were hampered due to incessant rains and power failure.
The Visakhapatnam Cyclone Warning Centre has forecasted heavy to very heavy rains in the next 48 hours.

While the super cyclone Sandy got the attention of the entire world, Nilam, which hit the Indian East coast, could not attain stardom. But in terms of impact, Sandy and Nilam were almost equal. Nilam’s after-effect has reached even the Western Coast and affected cities like Mangalore Udupi, Bhatkal, Panaji, Ratnagiri, Pune, Akola and Aurangabad in Maharashtra.

“The Cycir (Cyclonic Circulation) is spread over five states of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, parts of Kerala and Maharashtra and surely is one of the biggest Cycirs in the recent years in terms of size and coverage,” YK Narasimhamurthy, duty officer at India Meteorology Department (IMD) Bangalore said.