Heavy rain wreaks havoc in erstwhile khammam district
Newly constructed double bedroom houses submerged in rainwater in Chandrugonda mandal on Tuesday
Khammam: Erstwhile Khammam district has received heavy rains in last 24 hours under the influence of low pressure in Bay of Bengal. On Monday also, district received heavy rain and it was the highest rainfall the district has received so far.
Khammam district has received an average of 8.4 cm rainfall and Bhadradri-Kothagudem district has received average rainfall of 4.8 cm.
The heavy rains that continued Tuesday have distributed normal life in the erstwhile Khammam district. Coal product in open cast was disturbed due to heavy rains in Kothagudem and Manuguru areas.
Highest rainfall of 18.6 cm was recorded in Sathupalli mandal in Khammam district during the past 24 hours. Vemsoor and Kallur mandals also recorded unusual rainfall of 17.8cm and 16.6 cm respectively.
Sathupalli town was fully inundated with rainwater. The same was the situation in several mandals. Main roads in majority of towns and highways at several places were flooded and water logging affected vehicular traffic.
At a few places, roads were washed away. At Tallada, as many as 15 goats were killed when a house collapsed due to rains.
At Penuballi, a youth, Mallela Ravi, got washed away when surplus water was released from a local tank.
In Kothagudem district, Mulkalapalli and Aswaraopet recorded 11 cm and 10.9 cm rainfall respectively while Chandrugonda mandal received 9.4 cm since Monday night. Kinnerasani and Taliperu reservoirs have been receiving good inflows.
The officials have lifted two gates of Taliperu Medium Irrigation Project near Cherla to discharge 3830 cusecs of excess water. Four gates of Kinnerasani project were lifted to discharge 4000 cusecs of water downstream.
Water level in River Godavari at Bhadrachalam was slowly increasing with the downpour in the river's catchment area and as its tributaries. At 6 pm of Tuesday, the water level was recorded to be 20 feet, the officials informed.
In both the districts, there was a steep fall in daytime temperatures as well. Low lying areas, residential colonies were affected with water logging and rainwater entered houses.
Kothagudem District Collector Dr MV Reddy visited Chandrugonda mandal and observed rain situation and interacted with the officers. District Collectors of Khammam and Kothagudem RV Karnan and MV Reddy respectively have alerted mandal level officials and told them to monitor the situation. Control rooms have been set up to address the situation.