Downpour in the dark

Hyderabad: Heavy rains suddenly at midnight battered the city, as the denizens in many areas were hard put to withstand its fury as outages marked power supply. Low-lying areas and people returning home late in the night were stranded for hours together on roads amidst unleashing of chaos by the rain god.

According to Telangana State Development Planning Society, some areas received very heavy rainfall from Thursday midnight to early Friday. People spent sleepless nights in some colonies as flood water entered their houses. Areas like Asifnagar, Rajendranagar, Secunderabad, Nampally, Khairatabad, Thirumalgiri, Bahadurpura received rains over 14 cm.

Severe water logging at many areas of Anandbagh, Malkajgiri, and Begumpet forced the residents to be confined to their houses. DRF teams swung into action and reached the inundated areas and shifted some people to safe places with the help of special boats and distributed milk, bread and biscuits to the rest stuck in their houses.

Water gushed into 200 houses in MS Makta near Raj Bhavan, as the protection wall of an open drain collapsed. Emergency teams were immediately deputed to inundated colonies for rescue operations. State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) personnel also assisted the municipal authorities in removing trees which fell on the roads and clearing the bottleneck in the free flow of storm water drains.

Commuters faced severe hardship on Friday morning because of the roads still remaining underwater. Due to Incessant rains over the last three to four days roads in several parts of the city have been badly damaged.

IMD denies highest rainfall claim

Private forecasters Skymet claim that the city received third-highest rainfall in last 111 years on Thursday night. However, the 100 plus-year-old Indian Meteorological Department denies any such report.

"The city received its highest rainfall which was 153.2 mm back in 1908, the second-highest rainfall that recorded was in 2017 around 90.2 mm followed by Thursday nights heavy rain lashes the city recorded 87 mm rainfall," Mahesh Palawat, Chief Meteorologist, Skymet, told the Hans India.

"The automated weather stations were installed by GHMC in 2013, so we don't have earlier rainfall data. It's difficult to claim whether it is accurate or correct," said Raja Rao Boddu, Meteorologist, Weather Forecasting and Aviation IMD. As per the IMD website, the city received around 84.9mm of rainfall on Thursday night, which is differing from Skynet report of 87mm rainfall