Hyderabad, August 18: It took four centimetres of relentless rain that lasted an hour on Tuesday to bring the capital to its knees. Two persons Chandra Dole (24) and Fareed Khan (20) were electrocuted, one at R.P. Road and the other at Gandhinagar in Secunderabad.
All the low-lying areas and major stretches of roads were inundated. Traffic along major arterial roads was fully disrupted and it took two to three hours for traffic police to clear the gridlocks.
Disruption of normal life was so intense that Chief Minister K. Rosaiah had to hold telephonic talks with the heads of various municipal bodies to take stock. He asked authorities to be on high alert and constantly monitor water-logging of low-lying areas.
Officials were directed to quickly take up relief works, deploy cranes to remove fallen trees and evacuate people from flooded areas to safer places. All major departments, including health, power, fire services, metro water works and traffic police, have been told to be on a high state of alert as the Hyderabad Met department has forecast more rain.
“This is purely a localised thunderstorm activity because of high daytime temperatures. The situation is likely to continue for one or two days in Telangana region,” summed up Hyderabad Met Director Dr. M. Satya Kumar.
Emergency helpline numbers of GHMC were clogged with complaints of water-logging at various localities and colonies in Borabanda, L.B. Nagar, Vanasthalipuram, Champapet, Chandanagar, Kacheguda Kabela, Moosarambagh, Mettuguda, Ramanthapur, Kukatpally KPHB Colony and Nizampet.
Traffic jams were witnessed at all the major roads, including Hi-Tech City, Kukatpally, Mettuguda, Uppal, Koti, Abids, Raj Bhavan Road and Saroornagar.
Water-logging at Raj Bhavan Road led to the traffic taking over 90 minutes to clear the stretch.
-Agencies