Diwali pyrotechnics in Andhra sans green crackers

Amaravati, Nov 14 : Most places in Andhra Pradesh escaped rain fury on Diwali day to celebrate one of the major festivals on the Telugu calendar with pyrotechnics sans green crackers.
Though the Met department had forecast rainfall in some parts of the state, all the 19 geographically distributed monitored places did not witness rainfall till 5:30 p.m., even as it is not clear yet if any place witnessed rainfall later.
The monitored places included Bapatla, Kakinada, Kalingapatnam, Kavali, Machilipatnam, Nandigama, Narasapuram, Nellore, Ongole, Jangamaheswarapuram, Tuni, Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam. Others included Anantapur, Arogyavaram, Kadapa, Kurnool, Tirupati and Amaravati.
The Diwali day ended up as a pleasant sunny day in Bhimavaram and its vicinity, including villages such as Seesali, Kalla, Doddanapudi, Chinnapulleru, Kallakuru and others.
Though the government had ordered that only green crackers should be used for the festival, people gleefully ignored the directives to burn all kinds of crackers and it is not clear as to how many used green crackers at all.
The Andhra Pradesh government had even specified that green crackers will be allowed only for two hours from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Saturday.