Choppers pressed into service to rescue marooned victims

Hyderabad,  Oct 3 :

To tackle  the  alarming  flood  situation in Andhra Pradesh, 600 army personnel with the help of 15 helicopters are working round  the clock  to  carry out the  rescue and  relief operation.

According to  reports  reaching  Hyderabad  on Saturday  the  Choppers  will  fly from  Bangalore , Tirupati and  Vijayawada  to  air-drop food  and  water packets  to the marooned  people  in the  flood affected areas of  Kurnool  and Mahabubnagar  districts.

Arrangements  have already been made to provide 2,00,000 water and  food packets  to  flood-affected people in the state. According to  Dinesh Kumar , commissioner  for the  disaster management  the  break up  of army personnel in the flood  affected areas is  as  follows.

 About   250 army personnel  are  deployed in Kurnool district, 170 in Mahabubnagar and another 150 in Krishna district to assist  the authorities  in  carrying out  the rescue and relief works. Apart  from  the  army personnel others  who are engaged in relief  and rescue  operations are Disaster Management Response Force personnel  from Tamil Nadu,  Bhubaneswar  and Pune.

Home  Minister  Sabita  Indra Reddy who  is  in touch  with the relief operations team in the flood affected areas said that  the army personnel  were provided with 48 mechanised boats  to pick up the  marooned people  from  submerged villages and towns. In Mahabubnagar district another 15 mechanised boats were preseed into service to evacuate the people to safer place.