Giri Pradakshina jams Visakhapatnam roads till past midnight; four-hour gridlock at Venkojipalem

Traffic seized up across Visakhapatnam on Tuesday (July 28, 2026) and stayed clogged until past midnight as lakhs of devotees took part in the annual Giri Pradakshina of Sri Varaha Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy.

The worst-hit stretches were jammed for up to four hours. At Venkojipalem, where nothing but devotees moved, motorists switched off their engines and waited. Some slept in their cars. Others watched reels on their phones.

The Maddilapalem-RTC Complex stretch, the Visakha Valley Junction-Madhurawada road, the Adavivaram-Sontyam road, Gopalapatnam road, the NAD Junction-Gajuwaka corridor and H.B. Colony road all saw bumper-to-bumper traffic, particularly in the evening. Motorists on the RTC Complex-Maddilapalem stretch reported being stranded for over an hour in queues running several kilometres. The congestion spilled into connecting interior roads and forced commuters onto longer routes.

The Venkojipalem-Hanumanthawaka road was choked from the morning as thousands of devotees walked towards Madhurawada while regular traffic ran on the adjoining lanes.

The gridlock held families with children inside their vehicles for hours. Many residents said they had never seen congestion of this order in the city.

Traffic diversions were in place and a large number of police personnel were deployed, yet the flow proved unmanageable at several junctions. Frustrated commuters blamed inadequate traffic management and poor planning. They said the police failed to regulate movement despite the known scale of the pilgrimage’s turnout.

4.55 lakh on the route by midnight

The cumulative footfall on the Giri Pradakshina route crossed 4.55 lakh by midnight, according to the Command and Control Centre’s hourly report. Crowd movement was recorded as slow in the 11 p.m. to midnight slot.

Twelve medical cases were reported in that hour, most of them weakness, dehydration or breathlessness at points along the route including the Tholi Pavancha. All were referred to nearby hospitals and none was recorded as critical. Thirty-three medical camps and 26 ambulances were deployed along the route.

The APSRTC ran 535 buses and had cleared 4.15 lakh passengers by midnight. An electricity pole that fell near Kailasagiri on the way to Jodugullapalem was attended to by APEPDCL, and the congestion between Venkojipalem and Maddilapalem junctions was cleared late in the night, the report said. No law and order incident and no missing-person case was reported.