Friday’s gale and thunderstorm has uprooted 1,355 trees across the Greater Hyderabad region. The GHMC officials, who are still clearing the obstructions on main roads and lanes, did a fresh count of the trees that the city lost on Sunday.
Surendra Mohan, Additional Commissioner of GHMC who is overseeing the complaints related to emergency services, informed that close to 1,000 trees have already been cleared.
He said the most affected areas were Jubilee Hills, Banjara Hills, Masab Tank and parts of south zone.
The gale that lasted for a few minutes has not only raised questions regarding the city’s preparedness to tackle such events, but has puzzled many on the reasons for its cause.
“We need to know why trees fell in Jubilee Hills and Banjara hills whereas no such damage was seen at Ramachandrapuram or other areas,” said Anant Maringanti, Director, Hyderabad Urban Labs. “Across the urban areas, the nature of gale has been changing and is more localised. The high-rise buildings might be changing the direction of the wind flow too. What has happened is odd and needs to be explained, but the problem is we have failed in documenting or maintaining records of floods, storms or other natural events.”
The selection of trees and plants by the administration was another major factor that led to the considerable loss of green cover, felt biodiversity experts.
“The GHMC and the Forest Department have been planting fast-growing trees that do not have deep root,” said R. Hampaiah, former Chairman, Andhra Pradesh Biodiversity Board.
“There is no use of these ornamental trees which will easily get uprooted during storms. The focus should be on planting varieties like neem and tamarind that are even useful for birds and are self-propagating. The laying of concrete roads around the trees without even leaving space for watering is another reason why the trees are becoming weak.”
