Tirupati: 20 villages evacuated as Rayala Cheruvu breaches

Tirupati: Following breach in the historic Ryala Cheruvu (tank) bund, people from 20 villages have been evacuated to relief centres. District collector M Harinarayana is closely monitoring the evacuation of the affected people.

This is a very old bund which was built during the rule of Vijayanagara empire. It is about 15 km from Tirupati in Ramachandrapuram mandal. As water started leaking from the bund on Sunday morning, locals alerted the authorities. The officials, including special officer P S Pradyumna inspected the bund and the district collector issued orders to evacuate people from the surrounding 20 villages. This is one of the biggest tanks in the State.

Officials said the present storage of water in the tank was 0.9 tmc feet against its capacity of 0.6 tmc. Such heavy inflows were seen for the first time in recent past. The villages which were evacuated are Balijapalli, SR Puram, Gangireddypalli, Kammakandrga, Kammapalli, Nennurur, Kotha Nennuru, Sakahamuri Kandriga, Yuguva Nethagiripalli, Diguvanethagiripalli, Padipeta, Mundlapudi,, Oddipalli, Kuntrapakam, ST Colony, Thanapalli, Padmavallipuram and Naguru Colony.

Revenue authorities have set up a relief centre in a private engineering college at C Ramapuram near Tirupati and also in the schools and hostels near the city. Meanwhile, irrigation officials have started repair works to close the breach.

A drone camera was also deployed to get a clear picture of the tank, including its long bund area and sluices.

Police and NDRF teams were have been stationed in the area as a standby arrangement to meet any eventuality.