Hyderabad: Just a day of heavy rains were enough for Hyderabad to relive the horror of October 2020 when the city was brought down to its knees by the worst floods in the recent memories.
With in 9 months of the last deluge, many parts of Hyderabad were battered and the normal life was derailed by a 10 to 20cm rain in several areas of the city. In many cases, the same colonies like Osman Nagar, Al Jubail and Omer colony in old city were hit hard which were flooded in October last. Bandlaguda, where many had died in the last flood, experienced large-scale havoc on Thursday. The area recorded the highest rainfall of 21.5cm in 24 hours.
With Meteorological Department forecasting more moderate to heavy rains over the next two days, administration was put on alert in the state capital as well as many other districts of Telangana.
Weather officials said that it was the third heaviest rain during July in a decade with aggregate rainfall of 6.9cm on a day. Normally Hyderabad does not see such heavy rainfall in July.
The rains plunged most parts of Hyderabad into darkness as electricity supply was disrupted, and the rains as well as the overflowing tanks submerged residential colonies and low-lying areas forcing the people to send SOS to the civic authorities. The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation emergency teams had to use rubber boats to rescue the people from the flooded areas.
Many roads were also sunk due to the stagnation of water up to several feet raising serious questions about the standard of civic works and maintenance of roads.
People, who were yet to recover from the shock of last October when dozens of people had drowned or washed away in surging flood waters of tanks and drains, were once angry asking the government why it failed to learn a lesson from the disaster of last year.
“If this is the situation at an early stage of monsoon what will happen in September-October, the normal season of cyclones and storms,” asked Syed Dastgir, a resident of Bandlaguda. “It is clear that the government just wasted the time since last flood and did nothing to prevent such calamities”, he added.
Telangana State Development Society, which monitors to natural calamities and disasters said that Medak district recorded very high rainfall of 22cm with Hayatnagar on the outskirts of Hyderabad recording 21cm in 24 hours.
People expressed fears that if heavy rains hit in the final phase of monsoon in September-October, Hyderabad will not be able to withstand another disaster as most of the water bodies in the city were already full.
