Prime Minister Narendra Modi after apprising himself of the massive damage and destruction caused by Cyclone Hudhud would make an aerial survey of the affected areas in Andhra Pradesh on Tuesday.
Prime Minister Modi, who had been keeping a close watch on the situation in the wake of the landfall of Cyclone Hudhud in AP and neighboring Odisha states since Sunday, spoke to AP Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu this morning and mae enquiries about the damager and the rescue and relief measures initiated by the state.
Apart from holding high-level review meetings with officials, which was also attended by the Cabinet Secretary, Principal Secretary to the PM, Home and Defence Secretaries and other senior officers of Indian Meteorological Departments and PMO, had stressed the need for taking all required measures to ensure that the people in the areas to be affected by the cyclone should be alerted and all steps taken to ensure minimal loss of life.
The Prime Minister even asked the Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh to keep track of the situation in both the states and initiate appropriate measures. Accordingly the Home Minister, who had been in which with the APO State since yesterday, again spoke to Chandrababu Naidu and enquired about the rescue and relief operations being undertaken.
The fury of Cyclone Hudhud, with wind-speeds ranging to nearly 200kph and accompanied by torrential rains, has turned Visakhaptnam the City of Destiny into a devastated city. The monstrous wind fury left a train of destruction uprooting trees, electric poles, communication towers etc. Apart from inundating the many areas, the cyclone has complete ravaged, electricity, transport, communication systems. The airport and railway stations were also severely affected.
The roads in the beautiful city were littered with uprooted trees, electricity poles, shattered tin and asbestos sheets, garbage etc. affecterd movement of traffic. With power supply complete affected, as the supply was cut off as a precautionary measure, the denizens could not get drinking water. With no water, no milk, no petrol no essential commodities, the people were put to untold miseries.
However Chandrababu Naidu Naidu with his past experience and timely action has made the government machinery to swing into action on a war footing relief and rescue operations to minimize the sufferings of the people. Firstly the government machinery swung into action to clear the roads of fallen trees and hoardings to ensure smooth flow of traffic. The other important aspect on which the authorities concentrated was to restore power supply as soon as possible by replacing the damaged and uprooted electric poles besides restoring the telephone lines. Though it is estimated that it would take another three days to restore power supply, the authorities have taken steps to press into service as many generators as possible to maintain essential services running.
The authorities also made arrangements to supply food packets, milk, drinking water etc from Vijayawada, Guntur and Amalapuram by air-dropping them with the help of four helicopters and a plane.
Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, who is staying in Rajahmundry and supervising the relief operations, said that a special team of 500 officers has been constituted to oversee the relief and rescue operations. For every one mandal one IAS Officer has been made in charge of these relief operations. Food packets are being supplied to the people in the affected areas by utilizing the services of helicopters. Since telecommunication network very essential in the relief and rescue operations, efforts are being made to restore them as early as possible , he observed and added that already 90 percent of them were rectified and restored.
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