Hyderabad: After the rain havoc of July, little did Hyderabad know that worse was in store on Tuesday morning. Recording the heaviest rainfall of the year, the city was a picture of chaos.
A four-year-old boy, a resident of NRI Colony in Pragathinagar of Bachupally, was washed away after falling into an overflowing drain near his apartment. His body was recovered from a lake three kilometres away in the evening. There was also no trace of another woman, who went missing from her residence in DS Nagar, as she was suspected washed away in a drain.
In Maisammaguda of Pochampally, floodwater entered the cellars of around 15 hostel buildings, necessitating the police to rescue over 500 girls and women using earthmover machines.
Rains flooded major junctions and flyovers, creating bottlenecks every 100 metres in the city.
Cars and buses were stuck in floodwater at Shaikpet flyover and Upperpally. A bike was also washed away in a nala and traced to Borabanda.
Flooding was a common sight in residential colonies of older and newer parts of the city.
Public transport was also severely affected at places such as the Kukatpally bus depot in Moosapet and the underbridge, as well as pavements and lifts, at the Moosapet and Erragadda Metro stations, both of which went underwater.
In addition to the heavy traffic jams, inundation, and water-logging, power outages added to residents’ woes.
A few areas faced power outages post-midnight, while many others experienced power issues from the wee hours till noon.
N. Raju, who runs a tiffin centre in Suncity, said he could not prepare most of the food items as there was no power. At Banjara Hills,
Rubia Shaikh said that there had been no power since midnight.
Rain became the talk of the town on social media as platforms too suffered from a deluge, albeit of posts expressing frustration over inundation, waterlogging, traffic jams and late notification of holidays to school. Videos of waterlogging, flooding, inundation and traffic jams did rounds on social media platform X (formerly Twitter).
Residents also tagged authorities in posts of their plight, seeking their help.
A user Venky, on X, posted a video of a submerged road in Prashanthnagar and asked for a boat to reach his exam centre at JNTU. With the government announcing a holiday on ‘X’ at 8.17 am, Kiran Goli, posted, “All students have reached their educational institutions. What should they do now?”
Normal life was hit in various districts, with the highest water inflows recorded at the Kadiyam project, with an inflow of 1.37 lakh cusecs.
