15% of year’s rain in 1 day

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After playing truant for a week, monsoon has hit the city with full force, bringing 15 per cent of the annual rain expectation on Sunday itself. The rainfall was recorded at 11 cm in GHMC’s West Zone and 5 cm in the Central Zone on Sunday, against less than 2 cm rain recorded on the first day of the monsoon last year. This is a strong beginning of the monsoon, civic officials said.

The Met department recorded 2.24 cm rain on Monday. The city receives an annual average of 75 cm rainfall. While the heavy showers resulted in complaints in many parts of the city, the North Zone GHMC office at Secunderabad is yet to open its emergency cell. Several calls to the emergency control room (on 27807321) by this newspaper went unanswered. Several stretches in North Zone, like SP Road and Ranigunj were flooded on Sunday.

Emergency numbers of West and East zones, which were not functioning on Sunday, were fixed on Monday. Meanwhile, the Hyderabad district collectorate has set up an emergency control room, and residents have been asked to contact 23202813 in case of any emergency.

Water-logging jams city roads
The Hitec City railway station area turned somewhat low-tech when stagnant rain water resulted in a massive traffic jam early on Monday. In fact, Sunday’s rainfall caused water-logging across the city and a fresh spell of rain on Monday saw heavy traffic jams at all major junctions for several hours.
Commuters were stuck in jams lasting from half-an-hour to one hour in Lakdi-ka-pul, Koti, Nampally, Punjagutta, Ameerpet and Begumpet, Banjara Hills, Kukatpally, S.R. Nagar, Balanagar, Basheerbagh, and Dilshuknagar and all connecting roads in the old city. By evening, things got much worse. “I was caught in a traffic jam between Begumpet and SP Road for over one-and-a-half hours at around 5.30 pm. The stretch generally takes between 15 to 20 minutes to cover during the early evening hours,” said Shailaja V., a motorist. The traffic moved at snail’s pace from Khairatabad towards Erramanzil junction starting at around 4 pm till the late hours as a heavy downpour lashed the city. Afzalgunj, SA Bazaar, Nayapul and Charminar saw major traffic bottlenecks throughout the evening hours.