HYDERABAD,
India (Reuters) - Under-prepared authorities battled to restore
normalcy in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh on Saturday
as flooding from the heaviest rain in nearly 50 years killed at
least 131 people.
Ominous dark
clouds hung over the state's capital city Hyderabad as floodwaters
receded slowly and residents assessed one of the worst urban disasters
in India's recent history.
The armed
forces were deployed on a war footing to repair a reservoir on
the northern boundary of the city that threatened to flood surrounding
areas. Officials said the death toll had reached 131 from 122
reported earlier on Saturday.
Main roads
in affluent parts of Hyderabad, which wants to become a center
of India's booming computer software industry, were choked with
slow-moving traffic as water drained from inundated buildings
and onto the street.
Earthmovers
were pressed into service to remove silt, workers hauled away
stinking piles of rotting weeds and owners tried to salvage cars
and vans washed away by flood waters and stuck in narrow pathways.
"Our
house was under four feet of water. It washed away all our groceries
and even a gold necklace we were trying to save from the water,"
said Mohammed Ali, a roadside tea vendor who lives in a low-lying
area in Hyderabad.
Waters continued
to gush from the Hussain Sagar reservoir -- located in the heart
of Hyderabad -- and filled canals leading out of the city.
Andhra Pradesh
Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu told state lawmakers on Saturday
that the damage caused by the floods would run into billions of
rupees.
Naidu said
that about 178,000 hectares (439,800 acres) of rice and other
crops were damaged.
An initial
government report of the damage said that more than 40,000 people
had been evacuated across the state and housed in 210 relief centers.
As many as
2,644 houses had been damaged, of which nearly 1,500 were fully
destroyed, in 292 towns and villages. Five hundred minor irrigation
tanks had breached across the state.
Naidu had
said on Friday that the government was not prepared to handle
the widespread havoc caused by the rains and accused the weather
department of making inaccurate forecasts.
Hyderabad
Meteorological Centre Director C.V.V. Bhadram said the rains this
week were the heaviest in five decades. The city was doused with
about one third of its annual rain in just 24 hours ending on
Thursday morning.
The floods
in southern India followed catastrophic monsoon rains in north
and northeast India, Bhutan, Nepal and Bangladesh. Those floods
are feared to have killed about 300 and left one million homeless.
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