The heavy rains that wreaked havoc in four districts of Andhra Pradesh killed at least 40 people, with 25 people still missing, Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy revealed in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Minister Amit Shah. Pegging the total losses due to the floods at Rs 6,054.29 crore, he sought immediate interim relief of Rs 1,000 crore from the Union government, to provide relief to flood affected families, and also to restore damaged infrastructure. Jagan also requested that the Union government depute an Inter Ministerial Central Team (IMCT) to assess the damage and losses caused by the heavy rains.
In his letter, Jagan noted that between November 13 and 20, the flood affected districts of Chittoor, Nellore, Anantapur and Kadapa received 11.1 cm of rainfall as against the normal rainfall of 3.2 cm — a deviation of 255.5%. The heavy rains led to inundation of low-lying rains, with 17 NDRF and SDRF teams and two helicopters deployed to undertake search and rescue operations. In total, nearly 1402 villages in 196 mandals and four towns were affected.
Many highways and rail routes were damaged, and irrigation tanks and canals got breached in the four flood-affected districts. The Somasila reservoir in Pennar basin received heavy inflows of more than 5 lakh cusecs of water during 48 hours, leading to inundation of low-lying areas in Nellore town and Kovur in the district. The Annamayya reservoir in Kadapa district was also breached, causing major damage. In Nellore district, the Swarnamukhi river has been in spate, and the road between Kovur and Nellore town is submerged in flood water, Jagan noted. Crops in thousands of acres that were ready for harvest were damaged, he said.
Agricultural crops to an extent of 1.43 lakh hectares, and horticulture crops to an extent of 42,299 hectares, were damaged, as per preliminary estimates. Road surface damages were estimated to have occurred at a length of 1,887.65 km. Under Municipal Administration, about 240.90 km length of road, 59.6 km pipelines, 2,764 street lights, 197.05 km open drainage, and 71 municipal schools, buildings and community centres etc. were damaged. About 2254.32 km of panchayat roads consisting of 1,013 roads and nine buildings were also damaged, as per the estimates. Around 1085 Rural Water Supply works, 376 pumping machinery, 183 intake structures etc. were also damaged, along with several electric feeder lines, substations and electric poles, the letter added.