Even as Hyderabad was reeling from heavy rains that lashed the city on Wednesday, GHMC commissioner B Janardhan Reddy on Thursday said that the only way to avoid flooded roads was not to venture out.
“The best solution during heavy rains is not to venture out unless there’s an emergency,” he was quoted as saying.
Deccan Chronicle reported:
The city has 9,099 km of roads but only 1,556 km have stormwater drains alongside. Thus most roads turn into drains. Other than the machines to clean four lakh manholes, the GHMC has no motors to pump water from flooded roads...The only solution is to wait for the water to find its own way, which takes 2-3 hours.
The DC report quotes Reddy as saying, "The storm-water drains were built to service a population of 30-50 lakh and the city now has 1.2 crore people. An increasing number of houses do not lay separate sewer lines and connect to existing ones, thus increasing the burden.”
As the city was pounded by heavy showers on Wednesday morning, with over 6cm of rainfall received in just three hours, numerous areas faced a variety of problems.
Seven people were killed with four people dying in a wall collapse in Ramanthapur and another three deaths when the roof of a house collapsed in Bholakpur. Several others were injured in incidents across the city.