Visakhapatnam, Oct. 14: Billed to become a smart city, Visakhapatnam looks like a bombed city.

At 7 this evening, it was still without electricity, piped water, Internet or mobile phone connectivity, or functioning ATMs and petrol stations for the third straight day.

The state-wide death toll has risen to 25 with more bodies discovered below collapsed walls and trees.

Although Hudhud damaged the airport’s roof on Sunday, the air traffic control tower is intact, allowing army and navy aircraft to land with food and milk.

“The runways are being cleared; passenger flights could begin shortly — maybe in a couple of days,” collector Yuvaraj said. Train services have resumed partially.

Mobile vans and water tankers have begun distributing food packets, milk sachets and water at select points. “About 40 to 50 per cent of the city’s 18 lakh people have been covered so far,” an official said early in the evening.

Sources said chief minister Chandrababu Naidu, camping in Visakhapatnam city since yesterday, was furious with the telecom service providers and had asked police to arrest their officials if services weren’t restored quickly in the city.

But the mobile phone service providers said most of their servers were down and could be restored only when power returned.

“Almost all our batteries have gone dry as we have been providing data (text-messaging) services, though not voice services, to all the government agencies and public utilities since Sunday,” a telecom official said.

Officials said power could be restored partially tonight. Till then, neither mobile phones nor Internet connections are likely to work, preventing people from sending pictures and data about the devastation in their areas for faster relief, as Naidu has asked them to.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi today praised Naidu for launching Android-based crowd-sourcing apps so that smart-phone users could download them and send area-wise feedback to the website of the National Remote Sensing Centre.

State government spokesperson Parakala Prabhakar said people had made nearly 10,000 downloads of the crowd-sourcing apps before their cellphone batteries died. Power had been switched off as a precaution late on Saturday night.

“We shall get the results (feedback) only after power and mobile services are restored. I hope people will respond with photos, text and videos on the damage,” Prabhakar said.

Modi, who did an aerial survey of Visakhapatnam today, announced a Rs 1,000-crore package to help the new state of residuary Andhra Pradesh get back on its feet.

Streets in its largest city, though, were still strewn with fallen trees, electricity poles, tangled and torn wires, shattered glass and other debris that have made driving a nightmare.

Many of the petrol stations have some stocks — and more are being sent by road and railway — but are wary of reopening because of their waterlogged compounds.