Warning of a heavy rainfall, Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) Mayor Bonthu Rammohan on Tuesday, asked the residents in the low-lying areas to shift to the relief camps. The Mayor said that the monsoon emergency and disaster response force team were on a high-alert. The Mayor gave a call to all the GHMC corporators to aid them in the relief and rescue campaign, and urged residents staying in dilapidated structures to immediately vacate their house and take shelter at the relief camps.
The Indian Meteorological department (IMD) has issued an ‘orange’ alert for Tuesday and Wednesday. The department anticipates heavy rainfall in several parts of Telangana including Hyderabad. The risk level for an orange alert is categorised as ‘medium’ -- which alerts officials to be prepared for adverse weather conditions. Under the impact of the heavy rainfall, flooding and water logging in many parts of Telangana may occur, trees and electric poles may get uprooted affecting the vehicular traffic for some hours to a few days, reservoirs may overflow or reach danger level and crops may be submerged, said IMD.
Minister of Municipal Administration and Urban Development, KT Rama Rao too had urged the residents who are in unsafe locations to immediately shift to the relief camps on Monday. KTR had said that the relief camps have all the facilities including food, drinking water and toilets. He said that they have nearly 37,000 relief kits to be distributed.
Due to the heavy rainfall warning, the government has appointed 80 special officers who would oversee the rescue and relief campaign in Hyderabad and adjoining areas which are under the risk of flooding.
The GHMC has suspended all its activities and is engaged in disaster management responsibility.
For safely evacuating the residents, the Telangana government had appealed to the neighbouring states of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh to provide them with 15 boats each. Telangana just has 18 boats, which is woefully short to carry out large-scale evacuations.