Amaravati: A day after the storm left the coast, the ledger in Andhra Pradesh reads seven dead, 2,24,489 hectares of standing crop destroyed and close to 15,000 electricity poles on the ground.
Arnab took six hours to come ashore near Narsapur in West Godavari district, between 2 am and 8 am on Wednesday. Sustained winds were 115 to 135 kmph, with gusts touching 150 kmph. The system weakened through the day and by Wednesday night had become a deep depression over north coastal Andhra.
The deaths came in different ways. Three people were electrocuted in Visakhapatnam and Anakapalli districts: Devudu, 65, who came in contact with a snapped live wire; Madhavi, 49, struck by a falling electric pole at Balaji Nagar; and a 55-year-old woman who stepped on a live wire outside her house in Yellamanchili. In Bhimavaram, Chokka Kishore, 45, was killed by a falling tree, and Rambabu died after a pole crashed on him. Karam Satyavathi, 35, was swept away by floodwater in East Godavari, and a 50-year-old woman died when a pole fell on her in Konaseema.
Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu announced Rs 5 lakh for each bereaved family. Households whose homes were flooded will get 25 kg of rice, or 50 kg for fishermen and handloom weavers, along with pulses, onions, sugar, potatoes and palm oil. Those in relief camps get Rs 1,000 each, capped at Rs 3,000 a family, and owners of partly damaged houses Rs 10,000. For crop loss, the government has fixed Rs 25,000 a hectare for paddy, cotton, groundnut and sugarcane, Rs 15,000 for banana and Rs 25,000 for tomato.
In a letter to Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Naidu put the preliminary crop damage at 2,24,489 hectares across 14 districts, affecting an estimated 3.45 lakh farmers, and sought an early central team to assess the loss. About 180 houses were damaged, most of them in Konaseema. Of more than 220 trees that fell on state roads, over 170 had been cleared by Wednesday afternoon.
The power network took the hardest knock. The Andhra Pradesh Eastern Power Distribution Company Limited lost supply to 25.33 lakh non-farm connections across 11 districts, 6,270 poles came down and 374 distribution transformers were damaged. The company estimates the damage to its installations at Rs 11.69 crore.
In neighbouring Odisha, Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi said the state had met its "zero casualty" objective. Even so, Ganjam and Gajapati districts were hammered — Patrapur recorded 546 mm of rain. A Coast Guard helicopter is being deployed in coordination with the Union Home Ministry to airlift more than 2,000 residents stranded by flooding across the two districts.
Amit Shah said he had spoken to the chief ministers of the four affected states and that NDRF and SDRF teams were working "on a war footing". More than 1,80,000 people have been evacuated across Andhra Pradesh and Odisha. Naidu is scheduled to visit Konaseema or West Godavari district on Thursday.