5 mandals plunge into darkness in East Godavari Agency

Kakinada: Power supply for five mandals in Agency area has been terminated due to the floods in East Godavari district. The restoration of the power supply seems to be possible only after one week. The 33 KV lines and 11 KV lines including some electric poles were submerged in the surging floodwater. People in Nellipaka, Kunavaram, Chintoor and Devipatnam mandals are facing a lot of hardship due to the termination of the power supply.

According to Transco SE Surya Prakash, 8,500 services are not working because of the floods in the agency. Moreover, the electrical lines are touching the surface of the floodwater and it becomes difficult to restore the lines immediately. The restoration of power supply would take at least one week. He said that they stopped power supply to prevent untoward incidents like electric shock and short circuits. He appealed to the people not to touch the electric monitors installed in fields besides transformers, cables and poles, which were in water for the last one week.

Communication was cut off four days ago as rivulets and streams are overflowing on the roads due to heavy rains and floods.

ITDA project officer Praven Aditya told 'The Hans India' that the rising floodwater at Bhadrachalam was flowing in the direction of Devipatnam mandal which was inundated. In order to prevent any untoward incidents, six sector officers have been appointed in Devipatnam mandal. To monitor the situation, 61 employees have been deployed and they are monitoring the situation and keeping the higher officials informed about the situation. Two control rooms have also been set up in Devipatnam for assessing the situation. The rescue and relief operations are on a war footing basis in the agency area under the aegis of ITDA. He appealed to the public not to move in flood waters. Snake bite vails have been supplied to all Primary Health Centres (PHCs) and Community Health Centres (CHCs) in the Agency area. He said that 32 medical teams have been deployed across Devipatnam mandal. Four teams of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) have been posted in Devipatnam mandal to help the officials carry out the rescue operations.

Meanwhile, people in the flood prone areas are experiencing dark nights due to lack of power. Many of the people have evacuated their villages due to submerging of their houses and went to safer places. Remaining people are residing on their terrace. However, they are not able to get potable drinking water as the water sources in the village are badly damaged and marooned in the flood waters. The people of tribal villages are making use of flood waters to drink it by cleaning the water with cleaning nuts (Indipakaya, Telugu name). The snakes are moving in the houses submerged in the floodwater.

In the Konaseema area also some snakes were killed by the local people. In these circumstances the flood victims requested the government to provide kerosene and mosquito coils to them for facing the crisis.