NDRF evacuates 600 people in flood-hit Telangana and Andhra Pradesh; 200 rescued in Maharashtra's Solapur

Hyderabad: The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), which is engaged in rescue operations in the rain-affected areas of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, on Friday said they have evacuated over 600 people from the inundated parts of Hyderabad, neighbouring Rangareddy district, and East Godavari of Andhra Pradesh. Some localities in Hyderabad, close to water bodies, remained in water even as the Telangana government continued relief efforts, officials said on Friday. According to a NDRF press release, rescue and evacuation operations in the flood-hit cities of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra continued as there is water in many of the areas due to heavy rainfall. “Today, NDRF teams have rescued about 200 stranded persons from Solapur district of Maharashtra and evacuated more than 600 persons in flood affected cities Hyderabad & Rangareddy of Telangana and East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh,” it said. Thirty fully equipped teams of NDRF are deployed in the flood affected southern states to assist civil administration in rescue and relief operations, NDRF said. “During the last three days, teams have rescued 540 people and evacuated about 5,000 persons to safer places in the four flood-affected states. Rescue operations are still going on in coordination with civil administration,” the statement added. Telangana minister KT Rama Rao visited several inundated areas in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation and held a review meeting with officials of the civic body, metro water board and electricity departments. During the meeting, the minister instructed the officials to coordinate with one another for restoration of power supply in colonies and apartments within 24 hours where electricity was interrupted due to inundation. The minister directed officials to take restoration and repair of roads at a cost of Rs.297 crore besides repair works of sewage and water pipelines that were damaged recently, at Rs.50 crore. The Telangana government on Friday stepped up relief measures in the rain-affected areas of the city, pumping out water from water-stagnated localities, clearing fallen trees and restoring power supply and road network. The Disaster Response Force (DRF) teams of the GHMC were continuously attending to clearing water stagnations, tree falls and other calls from citizens for assistance, officials said. GHMCs Director of Enforcement, Vigilance and Disaster Management Vishwajit Kampati said over 320 complaints have been attended to till Friday evening.