Hardly 20 minutes of heavy rain in two brief spells has left the city limping and gasping for breath on Monday evening, when roads went under water, and vehicles were stranded in gridlocks across the city during the evening peak hours. Vehicular traffic was gridlocked for over two hours at Ikea Junction, HiTec City and Cable Stayed bridge over Durgam Cheruvu.
After a relatively sunny and warm day, there was intense thunder activity towards the evening around 5.30 p.m., accompanied by sudden downpour. Though short, the intensity of rain was such that visibility declined, and vehicles moved at snail’s pace, navigating through the inundated roads.
While the traffic situation quickly turned from bad to worse in the Hitech City and surrounding areas, flood water captured roads even in central Hyderabad — at Nampally, Khairatabad, Banjara Hills, near Secretariat, in front of Raj Bhavan, on the Somajiguda stretch, and right near the Chief Minister’s Camp Office — all chronic water logging locations.
The causeway on the Musi River at Moosarambagh went under flood water, as the outlets were blocked. A balcony wall collapsed in an apartment community in Ameerpet. There were no injuries to anyone.
Severe inundation was reported also from areas such as Toli Chowki, Bahadurpura, Borabanda, Malakpet, Saroornagar, Ameerpet, Ranigunj, Banjara Hills, Begumpet, and other locations. Traffic crawled, while cops got busy in unclogging the manholes.
By 8 p.m., the city recorded the highest rainfall of about 5.7 centimetres in the automatic weather monitoring station at Sardar Mahal area, Charminar. It was followed closely by Malakpet and Saroornagar where five centimetres rainfall was registered.
Rajendranagar, Khairatabad, Secunderabad, Bahadurpura, Golconda, Himayatnagar, Nampally, LB Nagar, Shaikpet, Asifnagar, Balanagar, Kukatpally, Miyapur, Yusufguda, Jubilee Hills, BHEL and other areas received more than four centimetres of rain all in less than half an hour of downpour.
Several people stranded on roads gave alerts about the traffic situation on social media, asking others to stay where they were, and not to venture out.
Department of Meteorology issued orange alert for Hyderabad for Tuesday, with predictions of generally cloudy sky, light to moderate rain, and at times very intense spells.
Director, Hyderabad Meteorological Centre K. Nagaratna attributed the current spate of rain to a low pressure area formed under the influence of cyclonic circulation over West-central and adjoining North-western Bay of Bengal off the North Andhra- South Odisha coasts.
