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60-year old man’s timely alert saved hundreds from Kadapa floods
Parna Ramaiah, a retired watchman of the Annamayya project, is now being treated as a messiah by the people of Togurupeta, Ramachandrapuram and Salipeta villages
A timely alert by a 60-year old man saved hundreds of lives on the night of November 19, when devastating floods, caused due to the breach of the earthen bund of Annamayya project reservoir on Cheyyeru river in Andhra Pradesh’s Kadapa district, swept away several villages downstream.
Parna Ramaiah, a retired watchman of the Annamayya project, is now being treated as a messiah by the people of Togurupeta, Ramachandrapuram and Salipeta villages of Rajampet constituency, as they would have been swept away by the swirling waters of Cheyyeru river while they were still asleep but for the timely alert from him.
Ramaiah, who retired from service in June this year on superannuation, has been staying at his house at Togurupeta village, about half a kilometre from the dam. He has two acres of land on which he was growing turmeric.
“Even after my retirement, I have been continuing to keep a vigil on the project, as it has become a part of my life for the last three decades. Though I suffered a fracture to my leg three months ago, I have not stopped visiting the dam site regularly,” he told Hindustan Times.
Narrating the events of the fateful day, Ramaiah said due to heavy rains upstream of the river, the inflows into Annamayya reservoir was gradually increasing since the morning of November 18.
“The irrigation authorities were controlling the floods by releasing four of the five crest gates of the dam after assessing the inflows. By 8.30 pm, the water level reached 200 metres and within an hour, the water level came down to 190 metres, as all the gates were completely lifted,” he said.
But around 1.30 am on November 19, there was a massive flood to the dam. “In my three-decades-long service, I had never seen such a heavy flood and the reservoir was overflowing and the earthen bund started caving in. I alerted my son, who, with the help of a couple of irrigation officials, brought my family members to the upper part of the concrete dam,” he recalled.
Ramaiah immediately started calling whoever he knew in the three villages downstream of the dam – Togurupeta, Ramachandrapuram and Salipeta. “I told them to wake up all the villagers and ask them to rush to the nearby hillock, where a temple of Dasalamma (local village deity) is located. Within an hour, all the villagers were moved to the hillock,” he said.
Ramaiah also tried to contact the sarpanch of Pulaputhur village on the other side of the reservoir and after repeated attempts, he succeeded in talking the sarpanch, who immediately alerted all his villages who also rushed to the hillock.
“By 4 am, the earthen bund started eroding gradually. By 5.30 am, the entire bund got washed away and floodwaters gushed into the villages with massive force. Several villages downstream were completely inundated, causing massive destruction to crops, cattle and poultry. Hundreds of houses were razed to rubble,” Ramaiah said.
Gunisetty Mani of Togurupeta village said nobody in the village would have survived had Ramaiah not alerted them on time. “We were all in deep sleep and we didn’t have any hint about the threat to the dam. It was only receiving a call from Ramaiah that we could realise the magnitude of the situation and save ourselves by rushing to the Dasalamma temple on the adjacent hill,” Mani said.
Another villager J Sivaramaiah said he had been alert all through the night due to heavy rains and when he got a call from Ramaiah about the breach to Annamayya project, he rushed to every house and told the people to shift to the hill. “I also made a quick visit to the adjacent villages of Ramachandrapuram and Salipeta and alerted the people,” he said.
After the floods receded, the villagers came down from the hill, only to find their villages turning into virtual graveyards. “Not a single house withstood the flood fury. We have lost everything – money, gold, food grains, clothes, household articles, furniture. We are now at the mercy of the government,” Ramaiah said.
Kadapa district collector V Vijayarama Raju, in his report submitted to the state government, attributed the flash floods to Cheyyeru due to heavy rains, up to 10.7 cm in just 12 hours, which was unprecedented.
“The Pincha project upstream of Annamayya reservoir was receiving an inflow of only 3,845 cusecs at 8.30 am on November 18. But by evening, the inflow increased to 90,464 cusecs in one hour by 8.30 pm, which further went up to 1.17 lakh cusecs, while its discharge capacity was only 48,000 cusecs. So, the Pincha project got breached first and resulted in massive flood to Annamayya project to the extent of 3.2 lakh cusecs which led to the collapse of the earthen bund,” he explained.
The collector also claimed that the district authorities had alerted all the villagers by 6 pm on November 18 and as many as 400 families were shifted to safer locations. “Otherwise, the toll would have been higher,” he added.
