Rain-hit city picks up pieces

The city woke up to uprooted trees, snapped power lines and flooded streets, after torrential rains triggered by a cyclonic circulation lashed the city before dawn on Friday. Even as the rains were a welcome relief for denizens, who have been bearing the brunt of a particularly harsh summer, officials across departments tried to get the city back on its feet.
According to officials from the Indian Meteorological Department, the city received close to 75 mm of rainfall -the highest in the last 10 years in May, and close to the alltime high of 79.3 mm for May recorded in 1978.
“Due to the flow of moistureladen winds from the Bay of Bengal which met with the `hot-wave' prevailing over the city, we were witness to such rains. We are expecting that this system will be active for the next three days over Hyderabad, and will gradually progress to other parts of the state,“ Y K Reddy, director in-charge, IMD Hyderabad, told TOI. In the wake of the downpour, minimum temperatures dropped to 18.3°C, eight degrees below the season's average.
Nevertheless, the rains managed to wreak havoc over the city. “West Marredpally and Trimulgherry received the highest rainfall, with 5.4 cm and 6 cm respectively. Our teams were working tirelessly to remove all the debris and trees from blocking the roads,“ said a senior official from the GHMC.
HUNDREDS OF TREES UPROOTED
According to the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation's (GHMC) emergency response teams, rains brought down 324 trees. Rows and rows of trees were uprooted on Tankbund, forcing officials to close the Telugu Talli flyover.
GHMC commissioner B Janardhan Reddy, who was supervising the clean-up operation said several low-lying areas were inundated and relief measures were being taken up.
ROADS TURN INTO WATERWAYS
About 229 roads were completely inundated with potholes making an appearance on 116 stretches. A stretch of road at Hashmabad near Chandrayangutta was completely inundated, disrupting traffic from LB Nagar to Shamshabad airport. The stretch which is about 200 feet was inundated with nearly a foot of water, witnesses said.Speaking about the dangers of the road, Salam Hamdi, who runs a shop at the area, said, “This has become a dangerous stretch of road. Several motorists meet with accidents here because of the sand that gets accumulated on it.“
On Friday morning, Hamdi engaged some labourers to clear at least a portion of the sand on the road.
“The authorities are hardly concerned about taking steps to see that there is no water logging on this road,“ he said. In several places like Tadbun, ORR and Kokapet also roads were damaged badly.
CLOSE CALL FOR MANY
At Gachibowli, powerful winds managed to bring down an asbestos roof, leaving four people grievously injured. A similar incident occurred in Shaheen Nagar, where an asbestos roof was simply carried away by the winds.
A major disaster was averted near Moghalpura Kaman, where a electricity transformer exploded in flames in close proximity to a petrol bunk.
A family of four suffered injuries after a wall collapsed in Siddiqnagar. The injured were shifted to hospital. Meanwhile, the GHMC filed two FIRs against builders, one at Attapur and Himaythnagar, because of wall collapses in these areas.
CITY LEFT POWER-LESS
Due to heavy wind and gale, unexpected damages occurred to the distribution network resulting in number of breakdowns and power interruptions, the Southern Power Distribution Company Of Telangana Limited said.
The damage to power transmission lines resulted in large parts of IT corridor plunging into darkness for six to 12 hours starting 2.30 am. Even as citizens continued to call the emergency helplines numbers, supply was fully restored only by late afternoon.
“I woke up in the middle of the night to power cut and despite reporting of the cut and following up several times in the morning, power was restored only at 2.30 pm,“ said a resident of Madhavapuri hills, V Vishwakarma. The situation was no better in Madhapuri, Image hospital area, where officials were unable to restore power supply even six hours after the gail storm hit the city.
WATER SUPPLY SEVERELY HIT
The rains did not spare water supplies as power disruption delayed pumping of Godavari water by five hours. The power situation also had an impact on Krishna water with no power at Mailardevpally reservoir, from where water board supplies treated water to the both city and GHMC peripheral circles.
“Water supply got delayed by two to three hours. By 3 pm, the power supply was restored at all pumping stations. In few areas, residents received short supplies,“ said chief general manager, Transmission Circle, B Vijay Kumar Reddy.
Tankers' supply was also hit because of the power situation between 4 am and 3 pm. In some areas in the city, power supply was not restored even at 5 pm on Friday. As a result, hundreds of tankers were seen waiting in front of filling stations in the city.