Heavy rains inundate Telangana; 9, including 3 children, dead as wall collapses in Hyderabad

Incessant rains on Tuesday wreaked havoc at an unprecedented scale in Hyderabad.

Nine people of two families including three children were killed after a wall collapsed due to a boulder fall in Chandrayangutta of old city.

The extraordinary rains were a result of the depression from the Bay of Bengal that moved over Telangana on Tuesday.

Hyderabad Lok Sabha MP Asaduddin Owaisi tweeted about the incident on Wednesday.

"HyderabadRains, I was at a spot inspection in Mohammedia Hills, Bandlaguda where a private boundary wall fell resulting in death of 9 people & injuring 2. On my from there, I gave a lift to stranded bus passengers in Shamshabad, now I'm on my way to Talabkatta & Yesrab Nagar,” he tweeted.

In the 24 hours since Tuesday morning, 41 automatic weather stations in Telangana, most of them in and around Hyderabad like Malakpet, Charminar, Secunderabad, Begumpet, Uppal reported extremely heavy rainfall of over 20 cms.

Thousands of houses, hutments along the Musi river were submerged and locals scampered in the dark for safer places. Hundreds of low-lying colonies in the city were inundated and several cars and vehicles swept away in the gushing waters.

Speaking in the legislative council on Wednesday, municipal administration minister KT Rama Rao said that the authorities would forcibly evict the people still staying in low lying and damage prone buildings to prevent any further loss of life.

The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation has deployed about 20 special relief teams. People were rescued from their flooded homes by boats in some parts of the old city.

Heavy rains and inflows have caused the swelling of the Himayat Sagar and Osman Sagar reservoirs on Hyderabad outskirts, which were previously dry. For the first time in many years, water was released by opening four gates from Himayat Sagar, which added to the Musi flood flowing downstream through the Hyderabad city.

Though rains have receded from Wednesday morning, authorities have asked people not to venture out unless absolutely necessary. Rains are predicted for two more days.

With almost all the rivers and streams in Telangana swelling with flood water, links to many villages were cut off from the outside world.

The Hyderabad-Vijayawada highway, the main road link between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana was submerged at Abdullapurmet causing a traffic jam of about 10 kms on Tuesday night. Travellers stuck in rain, without food and water were left to suffer.

The Hyderabad-Bangalore highway was badly damaged at Gaganpahad near Shamshabad, hindering the vehicular movement towards the airport, Kurnool, and Bangalore.

Several areas in the East and West Godavari, Visakhapatnam districts, which received very heavy rainfall on Tuesday remained submerged. At the Prakasam Barrage in Vijayawada, over five lakh cusecs of Krishna water are flowing downstream towards the Bay of Bengal. District authorities are warning people in flood prone areas to immediately move to safer locations.

Andhra Pradesh CM Jaganmohan Reddy is reviewing the flood situation with officials. Authorities have raised the second level warning signal at the Prakasam Barrage where the water flow has increased to 6.5 lakh cusecs.