Another spell of torrential downpour beat down on the city for a second consecutive day on Wednesday, even before its residents could recover from Tuesday’s cloudburst.
Starting at about 5 p.m., the rain lashed the city in intensive spells of various durations, inundating several roads, and resulting in severe traffic blocks during the peak hours. At 8 p.m., and when the rain subsided, the IMD station at Begumpet recorded 4.8 cm of rain.
Heavy water logging was reported from areas including Paradise, Malakpet, Santhosh Nagar, Musheerabad, Vanasthalipuram, Kavadiguda, Ramnagar, Khairatabad, Begumpet, Punjagutta, Ameerpet, Secunderabad, R.P. Road, Hi-Tech City, Rajendra Nagar, Charminar and others. At Osmangunj, streets turned virtual streams for the second consecutive day, with no outlet for water.
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Punjagutta flyover experienced water logging on one side, as the vents provided to drain water could not catch up with the bounty being received. A traffic cop was seen manning the stream of vehicles standing in knee-deep water. Traffic situation turned from bad to worse on several stretches, including Nagarjuna Circle at Punjagutta, where a traffic gridlock was experienced forcing Mayor Bonthu Ram Mohan to come down and monitor the situation.
Commuters opting for Metro Rail for safer transport resulted in jam-packed metro stations in the Miyapur-L.B. Nagar corridor, causing delay in evacuation of passengers. Further, as a measure of caution in view of rains, the trains were run in manual mode, which increased the time lag, resulting in cascading effect of stranded passengers.
Cab aggregators had a field day, charging over ₹300 for distances less than a kilometre in the name of surge pricing. Food delivery apps completely shut down their services due to logistical issues. As per the data available from automatic weather stations across the city at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, localities including Srinagar Colony, Khairatabad, Vijayanagar Colony, Begumpet, Kavadiguda, Sardar Mahal, Red Hills and Balanagr recorded the highest rainfall of over 5 cm.
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Dabeerpura, Gachibowli, Fatehnagar, Rein Bazar, Nampally, Jagadgirigutta, Gudimalkapur, Rajendranagar, Yousufguda, Banjara Hills, Secunderabad, Abids, Lingampally, Kukatpally, Madhapur, Borabanda, and Begum Bazar received over four centimetres of rainfall.
The ongoing spell of torrential rains would continue for two more days in the city, Met officials said.
Senior meteorologist B. Raja Rao from Hyderabad Meteorological Centre attributed the incessant rains to active monsoons encouraged by an upper air cyclonic circulation in Rayalaseema, Telangana and parts of Karnataka. Also, an upper air trough has formed over Telangana, Jharkhand and Vidarbha, which is causing heavy rains. Meanwhile, the Tuesday’s cloudburst which began at about 5.30 p.m. and continued without interruption up to 2 a.m. on Wednesday, has given a bounty of 7.5 cm of rainfall to Hyderabad city, as recorded at the IMD station. As per the data from the automatic weather stations, the highest rainfall in the city was over 12 cm, recorded at Trimulgherry and Uppal, and the lowest was 7.6 cm at Madhapur.
The downpour left a trail of destruction behind, with residential areas in the eastern part experiencing heavy inundation. East Anandbagh in Malkajgiri, Satyasai Nagar in Jillelaguda, and Swaroop Nagar and New Bharat Nagar in Uppal, besides Patny Nagar in Secunderabad were inundated on Wednesday.
Rain water entered the Lalaguda Railway Hospital’s emergency ward and also Nacharam police station, both which were cleared by Wednesday morning. Osmangunj market experienced heavy inundation, drenching the onion supplies completely. Tedious outages marked power supply across the city, and traffic jams were witnessed everywhere.