At least 32 killed in Hyderabad floods, Army called in to assist with rescue operations

Hyderabad: The worst rains and flood in more than a century left Hyderabad city completely battered and paralyzed with hundreds of thousands of affected people struggling to recover from the devastation on Thursday. The unprecedented scale of disaster has forced the administration to seek the help from army for rescue and relief operations.

The death toll due to houses collapsing and drowning across Telangana had reached 32 with 19 of them in Hyderabad alone while dozens of people were still missing.

Two women in a family in Bandalaguda area of Hyderabad were found dead while six other members including two children of the same family were still missing. According to the police the family members were washed away in swirling flood water - when they tried to come out of their house and shift to a safer place.

The body of another missing person J Sunder Ra was also found in Nagole lake on Thursday. He was missing since yesterday. Another three year old boy drowned in the flooded cellar of a residential building in Dilsukhnagar. A man in Barkas, whose video of getting washed away in flood water had gone viral on social media, was saved by relief teams.

A burqa clad woman escaped narrowly as a dilapidated building collapsed just as she was passing under it. The woman remained unhurt.

Hundreds of colonies in all parts of the city were still under water as the Disaster Relief Force personnel were trying to evacuate the stranded people using boats in areas like Al-Jubail Colony, Nadeem colony and several other localities. In many low lying areas the ground floor was completely drowned forcing the families to move to the upper floors.

Though there was some respite from rains since Wednesday morning, it started raining again during the night creating more fears and panic among the people. The sky still remains overcast over Hyderabad as the deep depression developed in Bay Bengal was slowly passing over the region.

With some areas recording as much as 32 cms of rains, experts say it had broken the record of 129 years. Such rain fury in month of October was seen last in 1891 in Hydrabad, according to the record of Indian Meteorological Department (IMD). However in month of September the worst rain was in 1908 when the great deluge in river Musi killed 15000 people and destroyed a major part of the city. The same river was in spate once again as authorities opened 14 gates of Himayat Sagar reservoir across the river and released water.

2020 has turned out to be the wettest year for Telangana as the entire state has recorded 404% more than normal annual rainfall. Hyderabad itself has received 404% excess rainfall.

Civic authorities and experts have blamed the large scale devastation on illegal encroachments of lakes and water bodies in and around the city, indiscriminate development of residential colonies and choking of the natural water drains.

As dozens of lakes, unable to bear the furious flow of rain water following the extremely heavy rainfall, breached leading to the unprecedented flooding and destruction of civil infrastructure including roads.

Thousands of vehicles including cars were drowned or washed away. Similarly the power supply system was also hit very badly as 200 transformers were also washed away and thousands were damaged.

According to the officials of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation a whopping 20,540 houses were damaged. Administration has set up 61 relief camps and 150,000 food packets were distributed among the affected families. But the civil society was more visible in the rescue and relief work right from the first sign of the calamity.

Accommodate families

On one hand Majlis ttehadul Muslimeen cadre led by its president and MP Asaduddin Owaisi and MLA were in the affected areas helping in rescue and relief operation, and on the other many social, religious organizations Jamat-e-Islami and Students Islamic Organization were also busy in helping the people. Several mosques had opened their doors to accommodate the evacuated families. MS Group, a leading educational institution also threw open all its schools and college to accommodate the evacuees.

While only six boats were available with the GHMC for rescue efforts, private citizens used their own resources including JCBs and cranes to save the stranded families.

In Secunderabad Lo Sabha constituency minister of state for home G Kishan Reddy also visited the affected areas while the cadres of RSS were distributing food packets and providing relief to the families in marooned areas.

While Minister for Urban Development K Taraka Rama Rao was also on the ground supervising the relief measures, the Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has convened an official meeting to assess the extent of the losses to the public and private property.