Hyderabad: Smart City turns into Lake City
A heavy water flow across the Begumpet main road near the Old Airport due to sudden downpour in the city leading to widespread traffic jams on Saturday. Photo: Ch Prabhu Das
Hyderabad: A short intense spell of rainfall is turning the so-called Smart City into a Lake City. It has become a routine for the GHMC to caution the people every evening to stay at home.
Telangana and Hyderabad have been witnessing long spells of rainfall this season and the suffering is likely to continue till October 14.
While the political leaders and officials try to blame the previous governments for the pathetic situation, the people continue to suffer as roads get water-logged resulting in massive traffic jams which took over two-and-a-half hours to cover a stretch of 4 km even on a VIP route.
On Saturday as the city was lashed with heavy downpour, within minutes there was heavy water logging in front of the Hyderabad Public School and to cross the stretch from HPS to Banjara Hills, it took over two hours. This resulted in hell particularly for the two-wheelers.
Traffic was halted at different parts of the city like Chikkadpally, Madhapur, Jubilee Hills, Banjara Hills, Panjagutta, Bowenpally, Vanasthalipuram, L B Nagar, Malkajgiri following heavy water-logging.
Following heavy downpour on Friday night, the Saroornagar lake got breached and water gushed into the Siva Ganga theatre and under its impact the boundary wall collapsed damaging several two-wheelers which were parked in the theatre.
One person had a miraculous escape on Friday night in Vanasthalipuram's Chintalkunta, as a motorist reportedly fell into an open drain during the rain. He was found 3 km away at Karmanghat and had sustained minor injuries.
Water entered several houses, hotels and shops in the low-lying areas. GHMC instructed the Zonal Commissioners to be in the field and monitor the situation in their respective zones and alerted the monsoon action teams and Disaster Response Force (DRF) to clear the water stagnations and remove fallen branches of trees and shift people at low-lying areas to shelter homes in case of emergency.
The GHMC along with the Police department had to struggle to clear the traffic and water stagnation at different parts of the city.
Around 150 families of Lambadi thanda at Hayathnagar division of the civic body on Friday were shifted to the shelter homes and provided basic necessities.
According to the Telangana State Development Planning Society, the highest rainfall witnessed was 95.5 mm at Secunderabad, 86.6 mm at Begumpet, 71.8 at Balanagar and Kukatpally, 58.5 mm at Alwal, 46.3 mm at LB Nagar, 35.9 mm at Malkajgiri, 29.8 mm at Khairatabad, 23.5 mm at Santosh Nagar, 14.5mm at Nampally.