Cyclone Murasu caused about ₹1,919 crore of damage in Andhra, Naidu says, with crops hit on 1.4 lakh hectares

Cyclone Murasu caused damage worth about ₹1,919 crore in Andhra Pradesh, Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu said on Friday, as the state put together its first count of what the storm destroyed when it crossed the south coast three days ago.

The preliminary assessment, set out in an official statement, lists eight deaths: five in Bapatla district, two in Guntur and one in Palnadu. In all, 59 mandals and 649 gram panchayats were affected. The storm damaged 983 houses, 346 boats and 220 fishing nets, a heavy loss for fishing families along the coast.

Naidu put the state’s losses at around ₹1,918.5 crore and said he would see the worst-hit areas for himself. “We will visit cyclone-affected areas in Bapatla and Guntur districts to assess the damage caused by Cyclone Murasu,” he said.

Farmers take the biggest blow

Agriculture bore the brunt. Field crops were damaged on 1.4 lakh hectares, affecting more than 1.8 lakh farmers, and horticulture crops on another 6,749 hectares, affecting 12,586 farmers. Officials said a precise count of crop losses will take another 48 to 72 hours, once floodwater drains from the fields. Water flows in rivers, reservoirs and canals are still being watched.

The state has released ₹37 crore to the districts for immediate relief. Naidu told officials to speed up the work on power, drinking water and roads so that farmers and residents face as little hardship as possible.

Power, roads and phones

The storm brought down 3,946 electricity poles. The power distribution company had repaired 1,493 of them, and 871 of the 1,103 affected 11-kV feeders were back in service. About 760 km of major district roads and state highways were damaged, and fallen trees have been cleared at all 206 spots where they blocked traffic. Another 74 rural roads, 204 km in all, need repairs estimated at ₹92 crore.

Mobile networks are nearly back. About 97 per cent of towers, 30,518 of 31,428, were working, though some sites in Bapatla, Prakasam and West Godavari still need repair. All 336 drainage blockages identified after the storm have been cleared.

How the state prepared

Thirteen teams of the National Disaster Response Force, 11 of the State Disaster Response Force and 390 fire personnel worked through the storm. The government said it sent about 5.8 crore warning messages to people’s phones before Murasu made landfall near Ongole early on Tuesday.

The full bill will be clearer once the field survey of crop losses ends in the coming days.