Nightmare for low-lying areas
Five people, including a woman, were killed when the compound wall of a factory fell on their huts in Balanagar on the city’s outskirts early on Saturday, said the police. Three of the victims were labourers from Madhya Pradesh. The deceased were identified as J. Pochamma, 42, and her son J. Babu, 24, and G. Shantilal, 19, Kalu Khan, 19, and D. Gopal, 18.
In a separate incident, four members of a family were killed when the wall of their house collapsed at Adityanagar in Hafeezpet. A woman, her two daughters and son were asleep when the wall collapsed, a police officer said. The deceased were identified as Farida Begum, 31, Md Zameer, 6, Samreen Begum, 4, and Muskan Begum, 4. Four students were injured when a wall collapsed and fell on a school building in Balanagar. Moreover, two people were feared drowned when the car in which they were travelling got swept away by floodwaters in Kallavagu near Alur in Kurnool.
For the residents of low-lying areas in the twin cities, the nightmare started after midnight. “Soon, household items started to float and we climbed on top of the slab of the house for safety. Like us, many families could not eat at Sehri and several others had Sehri on roof tops. Not a single official came to our basti till morning,” said Mr Kamaluddin Ahmed, a resident of Rasoolpura.
On learning that all houses in Nagamaiah Kunta were marooned, Mr Ashok Goud went in his auto-trolley and shifted his sister’s family to his house in Ameerpet. “I received a call around 3.30 am from my sister that rainwater was gushing into the houses and it had already risen above knee-level. I rushed to the place in my auto-trolley and brought them to my place.” In Viman Nagar, people came in the rain to see half a dozen cars and two-wheelers that were submerged in rain water in the cellar of an apartment.
The capacity of the storm water drain network of the city was 10 mm of rainfall per hour back in 2000, it has been enhanced only to 15 to 20 mm per hour in 2012. GHMC commissioner M.T. Krishna Babu admitted that the city drain network could not take such heavy rainfall. Vice-chairman of National Disaster Management Authority M. Shashidhar Reddy said the drainage system needed to be improved and added that the GHMC was not following the guidelines framed by the NDMA at a national-level to minimise the problems arising out of flooding. The GHMC Central Emergency cell received 100 complaints of water stagnation on main roads.
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