Cyclone Murasu loss put at Rs 1,918.55 crore with crops hit on 1.43 lakh hectares; Naidu tours Bapatla and Guntur as power returns for 29 lakh consumers

Cyclone Murasu cost Andhra Pradesh an estimated Rs 1,918.55 crore, officials told Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu when he reviewed the damage on Thursday, 5 November. Their preliminary count shows crops damaged on 1,43,122 hectares, hitting 1,86,063 farmers, after the storm crossed the coast near Kothapatnam on 3 November.

Horticulture crops were lost on another 6,749 hectares belonging to 12,586 farmers. On the coast, 346 boats and 220 fishing nets were damaged, along with 983 houses. With two cyclones in quick succession, Naidu told officials that farmers and residents should not be left in difficulty, and asked them to put power supply, road repairs and drinking water first.

Chief Minister in Bapatla and Guntur

Naidu decided to see the damage himself on Friday, 6 November. His schedule has him taking off from his Undavalli residence at 12.20 pm and landing at the Bapatla Air Force Station, then driving to the Jillellamudi bridge near Bapatla, where Irrigation Department officials will take him through the damage to drains. From there he goes to Returu, a village in Guntur district’s Kakumanu mandal, to talk to farmers about their crop losses, before flying back to Undavalli at 3 pm.

Power back for 29 lakh consumers

The power utilities say most of the network is working again. In the APEPDCL area, 1,001 teams with 11,537 workers have brought every one of the 552 damaged substations back, lighting up 5,753 villages and close to 29 lakh consumers. In the APCPDCL area, more than 230 teams reconnected over three lakh homes and businesses, and work in flood-hit mandals is in its last stage. K Vijayanand, Special Chief Secretary for Energy, went over the progress on Thursday at the State Load Dispatch Centre in Vidyut Soudha.

Prakasam and Bapatla districts took the worst of it. A 220 kV tower fell in Bapatla and brought down lines on the 132 kV Parchur-Chirala corridor, and floodwater broke through the compound wall of the Guddigudem substation before engineers pumped it out and switched the 400 kV lines back on.

The final crop-loss count, officials said, will take 48 to 72 hours after floodwater drains from the fields.