Sudden storm kills seven, brings Hyderabad to a halt
HYDERABAD: A sudden downpour wreaked havoc in Hyderabad on Monday, resulting in suffocating traffic for over five hours and the deaths of seven people in the city and its surrounds.
In the city and in nearby districts of Telangana, thunderstorms and heavy rains caused buildings to collapse, cars to be crushed, and crops to be destroyed.
Four persons died due to lightning at Narayankhed, a town in Sangareddy, a district on the outskirts of Hyderabad.
Starting at 5 pm, the capital city received more than 13 centimetres of rain in five hours. In Singadikunta, a slum in the upscale neighbourhood of Banjara Hills, a 30-year-old man and his four-month-old son died when a wall collapsed on their hut. In the Hussaini Alam area of the old city, a 35-year-old rickshaw puller died of electrocution when a live wire fell on him. The state government announced ₹4 lakh to the next of kin of the deceased.
The sudden downpour was initially described as a “cloud burst” by some Hyderabad Meteorological Department (HMD) authorities considering its magnitude, but director of HMD YK Reddy later clarified that it was not exactly a cloud burst, but certainly intense rainfall.
“One can call it a cloud burst if there is a minimum of 10 cm of rain in a span of one hour. In this case, the rain was around 13 cm in a span of five hours,” he said.
Though such heavy rainfall is rare, it is not unusual to have a cloud formation in a short period of time due to increase in relative humidity. “In Hyderabad, the humidity increased from 87% to 97% in a span of 24 hours, and that resulted in a sudden downpour,” Reddy said.
The HMD forecasted more rains in Hyderabad and other parts of Telangana over the next 48 hours. After Monday, several colonies plunged into darkness for hours as wires snapped, disrupting the electricity supply. Commuters were stuck in gridlock and buses outside the city found that they could not enter.