Andhra Pradesh stepped up work to restore normal life in Cyclone Arnab-hit areas on Friday, October 30, with officials reporting that electricity supply had been restored to 4,881 of the 5,404 villages that lost power, Daily Kiran reported from Amaravati.

Source: Daily Kiran

Of the 552 affected substations, 513 had been reactivated — about 93 per cent of the work — with 39 still awaiting restoration, officials said. Electricity had been fully restored in all affected villages of Vizianagaram, Visakhapatnam, Anakapalli, Kakinada and Eluru districts, while in the heavily hit Konaseema region power was back in 87 of 316 villages and in West Godavari in 154 of 318 villages. In Krishna district, supply had been restored in 867 of 915 affected villages.

4,881 / 5,404Villages with power restored
513 / 552Substations reactivated
661 / 1,045Mobile towers back online
2,270Fallen trees cleared from roads

Mobile services were also returning: 661 of 1,045 affected mobile towers were back online, leaving 384 still to be restored. The Roads and Buildings Department had cleared 2,270 fallen trees from roadways, including 1,334 in Konaseema alone, and traffic had been restored at 119 of 137 disrupted locations, officials said.

The scale of the remaining repair task is large. Officials put road damage at 2,425.45 kilometres, and said the Water Resources Department had completed temporary repairs at 100 locations, including 78 ponds and 22 canals. Agricultural crops on 352,254 hectares across 16 districts were affected, along with horticultural crops on 23,211 hectares, according to official reports cited by Daily Kiran.

Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu reviewed relief and recovery operations before visiting the impacted areas of West Godavari district, and instructed officials during a village-level review to maintain full commitment until every affected individual receives help and all issues are resolved, the report said. An earlier restoration review reported by Kolkata Today had put power restored at 4,771 of about 5,400 villages, showing the tally rising through the day as repair crews, helped by teams from neighbouring states, worked through the affected districts.

The restoration update follows the state government's earlier assessment, reported previously, that Cyclone Arnab claimed seven lives in Andhra Pradesh and caused preliminary losses of about Rs 4,600 crore — a figure Chief Minister Naidu said could rise after a detailed assessment. Officials said floodwaters were still rising in places after about 380 TMC of water fell in the state between October 26 and 29, even as storage in reservoirs rose by an additional 4.68 TMC.