The state government may have to relocate at least two towns and several villages after the floods deposited two to six feet of silt and slush, rendering the areas unfit for habitation.

Alampur in Mahabubnagar district, located on the border with Kurnool, now has six feet of slush, with the ground floors of houses filled with silt, debris and slush. The town had been submerged for four days. The residents returned from the relief camps only to find their houses filled with carcasses and layers of slush. Even a week after the ebbing of the floods, the town suffers the stench of rotting carcasses, and residents are up against the hardening slush which only bulldozers are capable of removing.

Chief Minister K Rosaiah’s visit on Monday saw angry residents asking him to visit their homes and assess for himself whether it was possible to go back to them. They demanded that the government build new houses for all the affected families, a few miles away from the existing town.

On Tuesday, Rosaiah said that if families wanted to shift, the state government was ready to build new houses at a higher ground for them a few miles away from the existing town. “I know that many of the houses are totally destroyed and they cannot be inhabited anymore. If the families want, we will build houses for them elsewhere. But we cannot agree to demands that these houses be pulled down and new houses be built by the government at the same place,” Rosaiah said.

... contd.