Hyderabad: A powerful thunderstorm and heavy rains struck Hyderabad last night uprooting trees and electricity poles plunging many parts of the city into darkness.
Hyderabad Meteorological Department officials said the rains were caused by the trough that was formed from Madhya Pradesh through Vidarbha, Telangana, Rayalaseema and Karnataka.
The gales and lightening hit the city at around 10.30pm and continued past midnight, throwing the traffic out of gear. Apart from suburbs such as Uppal, LB Nagar, Nagole, Habsiguda and Tarnaka, areas such as Banjara Hills, Jubilee Hills, Madhapur and Khairatabad were also badly hit as hailstones also damaged vehicles and houses.
Gale winds reaching a speed up to 100km/h uprooted trees and snapped power lines. Fallen trees obstructed traffic in many places and municipal authorities had to deploy emergency squads to remove them.
The rains were so heavy that waist-deep water had accumulated at many places and the vehicles remained stranded for several hours. Due to the bad weather a truck over turned on Raj Bhavan Road injuring a person. Khairatabad cross roads was under more than two feet [24 inches] of water.
The entire stretch from Ameerpet to Kukatpally was clogged with vehicles due to the flooding.
In another accident, Andhra Pradesh Minister P Narayana’s son, P Nisht, and his friend, Raja Ravi Verma, died when his Mercedes Benz car hit the pillar of Metro Rail in Jubilee Hills while trying to avoiding a pool of water.
In view of the powerful gale winds, the authorities discontinued power supply in many areas.
IMD, Hyderabad YK Reddy said, “due to a trough from Telangana to Tamil Nadu thunder storm with or without hails are very likely in all districts of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana for one more day”.