Koraput: The Malkangiri administration heaved a sigh of relief after the rain receded on Tuesday, with the district averting a possible flash-flood like situation.

The district's road communication with Bhubaneswar that had been cut-off by rainwater over the Pangam Bridge, about 35km from the district headquarters town on NH-326, was also restored on Tuesday after the water receded.

"The situation is normal now and vehicles have started plying on the bridge. National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) officials also repaired on war footing one of the connecting roads to the bridge that was damaged in the rain," said district collector Manish Agrawal.

Mathili block, 50km from Malkangiri town on NH-326, which was worst affected by the torrential rain since Saturday night, showed signs of improvement with the decrease in rainfall. The block had received 183mm of rain on Monday and recorded 101mm on Tuesday.

An official said normality returned to Karmapalli, Termapalli, Mahupadar, Salmi and Kiang panchayats in the block that had gone under water on Monday and had virtually remained cut off from the district headquarters.

"The two free kitchen centres at Mahupadar and Karmapalli on Monday to provide cooked food to the victims were closed on Tuesday as the situation improved," the collector said.

District emergency officer Pramod Kumar Behera said although they had planned to evacuate villagers of Binayakpur, Peta, Muraliguda and Amla in Motu tehsil in the wake of a possible flood, the need had not arisen. "We have not evacuated any one as the rainfall has decreased."

Behera also disputed the claim by a section of people that the construction of the Polavaram irrigation project by the Andhra Pradesh government on the Malkangiri border had given rise to the flood-like situation in the district. "We had contacted the Andhra government officials and they had said that no water had been released as there was no power generation in the past few days at their Sileru unit," said Behera.

The officials said all rivers and nullahs in the district were flowing below the danger mark. "However, our officials have been kept on high alert to avoid any flood situation," the collector said.