Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has directed officials of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) to be on a high alert following a prediction of heavy rainfall in the city.
The New Indian Express reported that KCR, as the Telangana CM is also known as, called up the GHMC and police commissioner and asked them to set up control rooms in all district.
The report adds:
Later, officials spoke to district collectors and wanted them to convene District Disaster Management Authority meetings immediately. Collectors were asked to identify the heavy rain and flooding-prone areas and shift people from low-lying areas to safer places in advance.
The report also states that a state-level control room was set up in Hyderabad with the phone number 040-23454088.
Hyderabad has been experiencing rains from Sunday afternoon with the MeT department predicting more rainfall in the city and other parts of Telangana.
With each shower, streets were getting waterlogged and traffic was piling up.
Earlier, YK Reddy, head scientist, Meteorological centre, Hyderabad told TNIE "In two days a low pressure area will be formed above the Bay of Bengal. Until then there won't be heavy rains till Monday. But after the low pressure area is formed, there will be heavy rains from Tuesday and Wednesday."
"Traffic jams, water logging and overflowing sewage has become a common feature in Hyderabad, even if it rains slightly. Instead of jumping into emergency measures and short term solutions, GHMC should come up with long term measures for avoiding problems during rains," Padmanabha Reddy, secretary of Forum For Good Governance also told TNIE.
In the first week of September, the city was pounded by heavy showers and received over 6cm of rainfall in just three hours.
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.
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