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Syed Amin Jafri in Hyderabad
The death toll in the heat wave over the last one week has shot up to 622 in Andhra Pradesh, state Relief Commissioner D C Rosaiah told rediff.com on Thursday.
He attributed the sudden spurt in the toll to delayed reports from remote villages about the casualties.
Most of the deaths occurred in the coastal districts where the temperatures hovered between 45 and 48 degree Celsius for a week before coming down in the last two days.
West Godavari topped the list with 109 deaths, followed closely by Krishna district with 101 and Guntur with 98.
In other coastal districts, Prakasam accounted for 77 deaths, East Godavari for 61 and Visakhapatnam for 39.
In the Telangana heartland, Warangal accounted for 41, followed by Khammam with 35 and Nalgonda with 18. Other districts accounted for the remaining 43 deaths.
Meanwhile, the temperature in coastal and Telangana areas rose by a few degrees on Thursday, after falling below 41 degrees Celsius in most places on Wednesday.
Isolated showers brought relief in some places while light rains were reported in a few towns.
Hyderabad Meteorological Centre Director Dr C V V Bhadram said "isolated showers and light rains are likely" in coastal Andhra, Telangana and Rayalaseema regions in the next 24 hours.
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