River Penna in spate: Grand trunk Vijayawada-Chennai rail, road route cut off
Tirupati: The railway track was washed away between the Nellore-Padugupadu section and a portion of the Chennai-Kolkata National Highway16 was badly damaged due to flash floods in River Penna in SPSR Nellore district on Sunday.
The Vijayawada-Chennai Grand Trunk section’s rail route and the NH-16 connecting Kolkata and Chennai are vital routes as they connect the south and the east. Following the heavy rain last week, River Penna was in spate and causing heavy destruction in the district. It inundated hundreds of villages along its course and submerged roads, national highways and railway tracks.
As the floodwaters from Penna overflowed on the railway tracks, a large portion of the track between Nellore-Padugupadu stations on the Chennai-Vijayawada section was badly damaged. Two of the three railway tracks were in hanging mode on Sunday as the bunds under the track were washed away. SCR has cancelled or diverted at least 17 train services on this route.
These include the Tirupati-Adilabad, Bhubaneswar-Tirupati (to and fro), Visakhapatnam-Kadapa, Howrah-Yesvantpur, Santragachi-Tirupati, Howrah-Chennai, Howrah-Trichy, Hatia-Yesvantpur, Banaswadi-Patna, H. Nizamuddin-Madurai, H. Nizamuddin-Ernakulam, Kacheguda-Chengalpattu, Kacheguda-Chittoor and Tirupati-Bilaspur routes.
The Adilabad-Tirupati train service was cancelled from Vijayawada to Tirupati, in part, and the Dhanbad-Alappuzha train was terminated at Rourkela.
The Secunderabad-Thiruvananthapuram trains has been diverted via the Secunderabad-Guntakal-Salem route, two New Delhi-Chennai trains via the Kazipet-Katpadi and Kazipet-Jolarpettai routes and the Ahmedabad-Chennai train via Guntur-Jolarpettai.
On the other hand, the Chennai-Kolkata NH16 was closed for traffic following a heavy breach of road near the Bhagat Singh colony close to Nellore city.
Vehicular movement was stalled as the road was cut off due to flooding. About 200 metres of the road on NH-16 was also badly damaged near Kovur.
With traffic on the busy Vijayawada-Nellore route disrupted, hundreds of vehicles were stranded for a stretch of about 5km on either side of the road. The police stopped the vehicles on Tirupati-Srikalahasti highway at Thottambedu checkpost and diverted the traffic via Kadapa, Pamuru and Darsi. Later, NH authorities took up the temporary repair works.
