Flood threat persists in Agency mandals

The flood threat persisted in eight Agency mandals through which the Godavari passes through in the district as the river continued to flow two feet higher than the danger mark of 53-feet at Bhadrachalam on Friday.

Dozens of river-side villages in Bhadrachalam Agency and other Agency areas in the district remained out of bounds due to overflowing streams cutting off road links to remote tribal pockets along the forest stretches in Charla and Dummugudem mandals, sources said.

More than 5,000 people were evacuated to safer places and most of them sheltered in the State-run relief camps set up in the eight Agency mandals.

Sources said that the water level in the Godavari at Bhadrachalam site remained constant at 55.30 feet from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Friday.

It may be mentioned that the Godavari peaked to little over 61.5 feet at the temple town on Monday before showing a declining trend in the last few days.

The incessant rains that battered parts of the catchment areas of the river over the last two days brought heavy inflows into the Godavari on Thursday with the river breaching the first, second and third (final) flood warning levels within a span of 24 hours at Bhadrachalam.

This has prompted the official machinery to remain extra vigilant to ward off major flood events.

In a teleconference held with the mandal and divisional level officials on Friday, Collector M. V. Reddy instructed them to constantly monitor the flood situation in their respective mandals to prevent loss of life and damage to property in view of forecast of moderate to heavy rainfall over the next two days.