Heavy rain lashed Hyderabad and its suburbs on Tuesday evening, throwing vehicular traffic out of gear. Many areas also faced electricity disruptions.
In some areas of the city, rain was accompanied by hailstorms. People claimed it provided much-needed respite from the sweltering heat, but the traffic situation was a mess, with hours-long traffic jams.
As many as seven persons, including a four-year-old child, died when a retaining wall at an under-construction apartment came crashing down due to the torrential downpour in Hyderabad’s Bachupally area, the police said.
According to the police, those who died were migrant workers who belonged to Odisha and Chhattisgarh. Their bodies were recovered early this morning from under the debris using an excavator, the police said.
The heavy rain, which lasted for nearly an hour, inundated the roads in a few areas, throwing vehicular traffic out of gear as trees fell at a few places due to strong winds.
Emergency teams from the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) were pressed into service to clear the stagnant water and fallen trees, but the traffic snarls continued for hours.
Kilometres-long traffic jams were seen in central Hyderabad, Secunderabad, and also in the information technology clusters of Madhapur and Gachibowli.
There were huge, serpentine traffic jams from the Raidurgam Biodiversity junction to IKEA and other stretches on the IT corridor.
🚨 Hyderabad city after a couple of hours of rain yesterday. (📹-@sripaad125) pic.twitter.com/jIGI3m3iEl
— Indian Tech & Infra (@IndianTechGuide) May 8, 2024
The movement of vehicles was also affected on the city’s outskirts.
Rain accompanied by thunderstorms also hit other districts in Telangana, including Karimnagar, Medak, Warangal, Komaram Bheem Asifabad, and Mulugu.
Several parts of the state were facing severe heatwave conditions for the last many days, with the maximum temperature at a few places crossing the 46-degree Celsius mark.
The weather office has forecast more rain and thunderstorms in parts of Telangana today.
(Inputs from IANS and PTI)
