Floods bring life to stand still in APBy Vikas Verma Hyderabad -August 10, 2006: The annual event called flood is back in Andhra Pradesh. Incessant rains and overflowing rivers in the AP coastal districts have affected almost half a million people in the state. With 14 out of 23 district adversely affected by the rains the state machinery has been severely challenged but has managed to keep its head above the water. A total of 106 people have lost lives and 5680 villages have been directly affected resulting in 542628 people getting evacuated to safer places. The major brunt of this has been faced by the densely populated East Godavari district where 324928 people were moved from just 428 villages. Khammam too has reported extensive damage to life and crops with about one hundred thousand people being evacuated to safer places. An estimated three hundred thousand people in the Godavari delta were surrounded by swirling waters on Monday 7th August as the mighty river and its seven distributaries burst their banks and flowed into hundreds of villages and island habitations. While the levels in the Godavari receded slightly (67 ft to 64 ft) at Bhadrachalam, the situation turned precarious as several of its tributaries were in spate. Gauthami and Vasista breached at two places flooding 160 villages and 50 island habitations. Parts of Polavaram, Narsapur and Mummidivaram towns were under waist-deep water. After two days the situation did stabilize yesterday with the water level falling in river Godavari throughout its 678-km-long course in the state. But what made matters worse was the high tide in the Bay of Bengal due to the full moon on Wednesday. Some 25 to 30 lakh cusecs of water from Dowlaiswaram did not enter the sea as the tide pushed it back into villages. Following Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy's request to the Prime Minister, India Air force was helping the state machinery in rescue operations with six helicopters joining the existing five choppers in relief operations. A pregnant woman and a sick girl were airlifted from a marooned village and shifted to the Government Hospital at Bhadrachalam. Also ten naval boats from Visakhapatnam were pressed into service in East Godavari. Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil, announced the Centre's decision to release $45 million for providing immediate relief to the people affected by floods. UNICEF state office has been in touch with the district authorities and NGOs in East Godavari and Khammam district. Bleaching powder, Chlorine tablets and ORS packets are being procured by UNICEF for immediate need after the water starts receding. There has been feedback from NGOS suggesting relief reaching late in remote areas. Many people are also suffering from fever and other related problems. There were also reports about the quality and the safety of the food being airdropped for those who are marooned. It is feared that with another depression building up in coastal areas the relief work will suffer a setback although the state has 445 relief camps up and running. The situation might worsen as huge quantities of water are also expected to be released from projects in Maharashtra.
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