Tirumala flood: Ghat reopens, trek road remains closed

Tirupati, Nov 20: After witnessing unprecedented rains leading to floods and landslides, the ghat roads leading to the holy Tirumala Hills have been re-opened for vehicular movement. It had remained closed for three days due to heavy rains and flash floods.

TTD Chairman YV Subba Reddy on Saturday said that the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) officers and staff worked on a war-footing to clear the boulders that blocked the ghat roads after falling on the roads due to landslips. They repaired the roads with some safety measures.

While the protection wall on the first ghat road near Akkagarla temple was damaged due to landslips at four places on the road, the second ghat road saw at least 13 landslides at various places, the Chairman said during his interaction with the media.

At some places, the Srivari Mettu road suffered damages and the stairway too was damaged due to heavy rains, he said. "The rainfall between November 17 and 19 (about 19 cm) was the highest in over 30 years and the total damages amounted to Rs 4 crore for the TTD," Subba Reddy said.

Also, the IT servers of TTD were hit by the heavy rains. "Our IT team got into swift action and restored the servers to alleviate the inconvenience to pilgrims," he added.

According to YV Subba Reddy, the TTD has decided that the pilgrims who could not have the lord's darshan despite having valid tickets will be allowed to take darshan at a later date. With inputs from PTI