Hyderabad: Rain, flooding expose chinks in city civic infra

Hyderabad: The heavy rain along with thunderstorm in Hyderabad city since Wednesday evening has again exposed the chinks in the civic infrastructure and lack of preparedness on part of the civic body, as familiar scenes of residential pockets facing flood-like situation repeated week after week. inundated. People in the most inundated areas spent sleepless nights as rainwater and water overflowing from drains and lakes entered their houses. In a horrific situation, a man in Borabanda was seen washed away by flowing rainwater along with a two-wheeler. However, the locals managed to rescue him.

In many localities, roads were flooded and areas like Manikonda, Borabanda, and surroundings experienced a flood-like situation as streets turned into rivers, bikes and auto-rickshaws got washed away in floodwater. The north side of the city witnessed rains till Thursday morning.

Wednesday night was horrifying for the east, north and western parts of the city. Torrential rains approached at around 6 pm and soon spread to the other parts too. The eastern part of the city was completely submerged in water.

The Wednesday night rains reminded people of the Hyderabad floods which occurred in October 2020. With rainwater flowing like river water, several bikes and auto-rickshaws were washed away in rainwater in Borabanda, Yousufguda and other low-lying areas. Begumpet, Alwal, Trimulgherry, R K Puram and other areas were sub-merged. There was massive water stagnation in areas like Secunderabad, Qutubullapur, Gajularamaram, Alwal, Kukatpally, Moosapet, Bowenpally, Erragadda, Borabanda, Punjagutta, Basheerbagh, Mehdipatnam, Himayat Nagar, and other areas. Water entered in several houses, forcing people to leave their residences and find higher ground for safety.

Commuters witnessed long traffic snarls while going back home from their workspace. Along with heavy rainfall there was electricity outrage in the city. A large number of residential apartments in various localities saw its basement inundated and vehicles were submerged. They were seen pumping out water till Thursday afternoon.

Moreover, citizens were seen blaming the government on social media for not taking preventive measures during rains. "The poor infrastructure in our cities and our complete lack of preparedness for climate change and extreme weather events should be our main concern. But none of our politicians seem concerned," slammed a user on Twitter.

Another twitter user wrote, "Fill the ponds, lakes, water bodies and make cities covered with full of concrete, then this is the outcome of it."

Issuing a yellow alert, the weather department has forecasted that all seven zones of Hyderabad, Charminar, Khairtabad, Kukatpally, L B Nagar, Secunderabad, and Serilingampally will receive light to moderate rainfall till October 15.