Rains and floods ravage Andhra Pradesh, Odisha; 51 dead

Hyderabad/Bhubaneshwar: Incessant rains and floods have claimed as many as 51 lives in Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and West Bengal with hundreds of villages submerged in nearly 30 districts and road and rail links disrupted in the region.The rain and flood-battered Andhra Pradesh, where 29 people have been killed in the last four days, is unlikely to get respite anytime soon as the Met department has forecast heavy downpour in the next 48 hours in the state as also in many Odisha districts and south Bengal.At least 16 people have died in flood-related incidents in Odisha, where the situation remained grim despite major rivers receding.At least six persons were killed in heavy rains in West Bengal with normal life thrown out of gear in the Kolkata and adjacent districts.As many as 3,230 villages in 16 districts of Andhra Prdesh were badly affected due to torrential rains and 6,600 houses damaged, Disaster Management Commissioner T Radha said.He said 405 minor irrigation tanks and 935 km road stretch had been damaged while breaches occurred in canals in different districts inundating settlements and crops. More than 72,000 people were evacuated from low-lying areas in nine districts Andhra Pradesh Agriculture Minister Kanna Lakshmi Narayana said crops in 6.77 lakh hectares of land had been damaged.The Government has set up 178 relief camps in the nine districts, including 36 in Srikakulam.Prakasam district accounted for the maximum deaths in Andhra Pradesh at six, followed by Guntur (5), Mahabubnagar (4), Hyderabad, Kurnool (three each), Vizianagaram, East Godavari, Nalgonda and Warangal (2 each). Besides, two persons have been reported missing in Visakhapatnam district.A flood alert has been sounded due to rising water level in river Krishna.In Odisha, two deaths each were reported from Bhadrak, Jajpur and Nayagarh districts, Special Relief Commissioner P K Mohapatra told reporters in Bhubaneshwar after the situation was reviewed by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.In worst-hit Ganjam district, the death toll remained at six and was four in Jagatsinghpur. "All the deaths were due to wall collapse and drowning," Mohapatra said.