A severe cyclone hit the southern part of the Indian state of Andhra
Pradesh early on December 16. According to ACT member Church’s
Auxiliary for Social Action (CASA), three districts experienced
heavy rains, and coastal areas also faced stormy weather with moderate
to heavy rains. Winds reached 120 km per hour, and tidal waves were
one to two meters above normal.
CASA reports that more than 8,000 houses were damaged or destroyed.
Uprooting of trees, telephone and power lines has been reported from
the affected places and traffic on major highways in the south coastal
districts has been affected due to water logging.
The storm killed at least 49 people in the Krishna, West Godavari
and Guntur districts. Krishna, where 24 people died due to houses
collapsing and heavy rains, was the worst affected, followed by West
Godavari (11 deaths) and Guntur (14 deaths), officials were reporting
on Tuesday evening. While Krishna faced the brunt of the storm, crops
of banana, paddy, betel and tobacco were damaged extensively in all
three districts.
Affected residents of these areas are currently without basic necessities.
Thousands of people have lost their shelter, clothing, livestock and
all of their household goods.
ACT members in India – CASA, the United Evangelical Lutheran Churches
in India (UELCI) and Lutheran World Service–India (LWSI) – have
requested US$50,000 from the ACT Rapid Response Fund for their response.
CASA will carry out the response by targeting 2,000 of the most-affected
families in the areas of Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh with clothing,
blankets and kitchen utensils. It will also provide food (rice and
lentils) in the form of dry ration kits. UELCI and LWSI have gathered
information from Andhra Evangelical Lutheran Church (AELC) and others
regarding relief needs in the other badly affected district of Guntur
and CASA will respond to the needs of the AELC areas in Guntur on
behalf of the three ACT members by providing clothing, blankets and
utensils to 1,000 families.
