AP rains: 4 killed in Anantapur house collapse; rain-related death toll reaches 16

According to officials, a building on old Chairman Street in Kadiri town, Anantapur, collapsed in the wee hours on Saturday killing four persons, including two children. Nine persons were rescued. The first floor of the house was recently constructed on an old building. Due to heavy rains, it caved in.

As many as 12 persons, including a bus conductor and two passengers, were washed away in the floodwater at Nanduluru village in the Rajampet division on Friday. Meanwhile, most of the localities in Kadapa city, which witnessed a deluge on 19 November, are in knee-deep water. Several residential localities were inundated by Buggavanka floodwater.

The officials said that the breaching of the earth bund of the Annamayya project and Cheyyuru reservoir led to flash floods. Eighteen people who were offering prayers at a Shiva temple at Gundluru village were washed away. Three bodies have been fished out so far, the officials said. Ramapuram village bore the brunt of the flash floods. Collapsed houses and walls and uprooted electrical poles and trees were seen at the village.

A villager, Ramana Reddy, told reporters that the floodwaters gushed like a tsunami and the villagers climbed on rooftops to save themselves. Nine persons living in one house are missing while livestock was washed away in the floodwaters, he said.

APSRTC managing director Dwaraka Tirumala Rao visited the Kadapa bus stand this morning and announced a compensation of Rs. 50 lakh to the family of the bus conductor who was one among three persons killed when a bus got stuck in the floodwaters at Nandalur. He said that over 1,800 bus services were canceled in the flood-affected districts.

In Nellore district, the river Penna continues to flood resulting in hundreds of villages being submerged. Meanwhile, Chief Minister Y.S Jagan Mohan Reddy conducted an aerial survey of the flood-affected Kadapa, Nellore, and Anantapur districts.

Heavy rains continue to lash Rayalaseema

Heavy rain is likely to occur at isolated places in the Rayalaseema region of Andhra Pradesh during the next 24 hours, the Indian Meteorological Department said on Saturday. It said that thunderstorms accompanied by lightning are likely to occur at isolated places in north coastal Andhra Pradesh and Yanam, south coastal Andhra Pradesh and Rayalaseema during the same period.

Light to moderate rain or thundershowers is likely to occur at most places or at isolated places or at few places in Rayalaseema, coastal Andhra Pradesh and Yanam and Telangana during the next five days, the IMD bulletin said. Rain occurred at a few places in the state during the last 24 hours.

The lowest minimum temperature of 19.8° Celsius and 21.8°Celsius was recorded at Medak and Hyderabad on the intervening night of Friday and Saturday, the bulletin added.