HYDERABAD, Nov 21: All major roads in Andhra Padesh remained cut off in floods following heavy downpour and storm for the last few days. Thousands of vehicles were stranded at several places. Forty eight trains were cancelled and nearly two hundred were diverted from the State routes on Sunday. Worst affected was the Chennai-Vijayawada grand trunk. Railway tracks were submerged in Nellore and other districts.

According to the South Central Railway (SCR), most trains were cancelled due to heavy flooding along the Nellore-Padugupadu section of Vijayawada Division and Razampet-Nandalur section of Guntakal Division. Many express and passenger trains were affected on Vijayawada-Tirupati, Narsapur-Tirupati, Vijayawada-Chennai, Nellore-Guntur and other routes, the railway officials said.

Some of the cancelled trains are Visakhapatnam-Kadapa, Tirupati-Hazrat Nizamuddin, Chennai Central-CST Mumbai, Tirupati-Nizamabad, Chittoor- Kacheguda, Chennai Central-LTT Mumbai, Tirupati-Kolhapur, Gudur- Secunderabad, Vijayawada-Chennai Central, Kakinada Town-Tirupati, Adilabad- HS Nanded, Lingampalli-Tirupati, Hyderabad-Tambaram, Hyderabad-Chennai Central, Secunderabad-Gudur, Secunderabad-Tirupati and Tirupati-Adilabad.

Tirupati-Adilabad, Bhubaneswar-Tirupati, Visakhapatnam-Kadapa, Howrah- Yeshwantpur, Howrah-Chennai Central, Hatia-Yeshwantpur, H. Nizamuddin- Madurai, New Delhi-Chennai Central, Kacheguda-Chengalpattu, Tirupati- Bilaspur, Tirupati-Secunderabad and several other trains were partially cancelled and a few were completely cancelled.

The Chennai-Kolkata National Highway-16 in the Nellore district was also damaged. Traffic on Nellore-Vijayawada has been suspended. As bus services were suspended at many places, passengers were also stranded. Motorists were advised to divert their vehicles through Kadapa, Pamuru and Darsi.

Even residential areas were inundated in Tirupati. In Kadapa district 13 people died. Seven deaths were reported from Anantapur and four from Chittoor. Nearly a hundred people are reported missing. Over a thousand houses have been damaged. Relief camps have been set up.

Twelve passengers drowned and 18 others went missing after three buses of the Andhra Pradesh Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) were submerged in floods in Kadapa district on Friday.

The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) deployed two teams each at Rajampet and Tirupati and three in Nellore.