Heavy rain lashes Vijayawada

Vijayawada: Heavy rain coupled with gales lashed Vijayawada city on Sunday morning and uprooted trees in some areas. Suddenly heavy rain started in some parts of the city and within minutes, some trees were uprooted and advertisement hoardings fell to the ground. Stormwater was stagnated on Pinnamaneni Polyclinic road, Low Bridge and other areas.

NTR district Collector G Lakshmisha immediately swung into action and instructed municipal staff to immediately remove trees and clear roads as NEET examination was scheduled to be held on Sunday morning. Over 13,000 students attended the NEET examination held in various centres in the city. Collector asked the VMC staff to drain out storm water for smooth passing of vehicles as students attending the NEET should not face difficulties. He visited Hanuman Pet, Moghalrajpuram, Nirmala school junction and personally supervised the tree removal works.

Later, briefing the media, he said 147 mm of rain occurred in 30 minutes inundating the low-lying areas. He said the district administration is on alert due to the weather warning given by the Meteorological centre, Amaravati.

He suggested children and elderly people not to come out of homes during the heavy rains and gales and told people not to park their vehicles under trees because the trees and tree branches may fall on the vehicles due to gales and heavy rains.

He said the district administration has arranged a control room and people can contact the control room for help and they can call the mobile No 9154970454. He said the district control room would respond to the grievances of the people and officials and staff are available at the control room.