Villagers Dig up Highway to Save Village, Traffic Grinds to a Halt

With the incessant rains from four days causing heavy floods in Nellore district, villagers of Vasili and Kolagatla in Atmakur division resorted to drastic measures to divert flood waters and to rescue their submerged villages.

The Mumbai-Nellore highway is under repair and to ensure an uninterrupted flow of traffic, authorities have created a temporary road. However, due to continuous inflow of storm water, the Vasili river started overflowing so much so that the river water started flowing over the main highway as well as the temporary road. Consequently, the villages of Vasili and Kolagatla along the Vasili river started to submerge.
Sensing further danger to the villages and no sight of any help from authorities, the villagers broke the highway road to drain the storm water. This resulted in traffic jam on the highway that stretched to several miles. Vehicular movement between Kadapa and Nellore districts has also come to a standstill. Officials state that highway repairs cannot be taken up unless river wate recedes. That is till Thursday evening no repair work will be taken up to the national highway.
Meanwhile, some villagers said that a flood alerted was sounded by the government officials but no relief measures such as vacating them to safer places was taken.
Nellore along with Kadapa and Chittoor districts has been receiving moderate to heavy rainfall due to the impact of cyclone Rovan.