State, rain leave city battered

A brief but torrid spell of rain and 70 kmph gales left Hyderabad in a shambles on Sunday, with uprooted trees and hoardings leaving the city without power for eight hours and more and a traffic jammed that enveloped most main roads.

The so-called “emergency teams” of the power and civic utilities responded only after three hours.

The rain lasted barely for an hour but gave a preview of what the city can expect in the monsoon next month with the civic authorities in a state of total unpreparedness.

The negligence of civic authorities meant that lakhs of people fretted and fumed and cursed in dark, waiting to perform the auspicious Lakshmi puja on Akshaya Tritiya.

Those who were out on the roads shopping for the festival or attending the thousands of weddings on the auspicious day were stuck in never-ending traffic jams.

Traffic was blocked trees felled by the gales but there was no sign of workers of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation and the Water Supply and Sewerage Board.

Motorists and local residents worked with bare hands to remove tree branches to clear the roads and policemen lent a helping hand. Vehicular traffic was diverted on several routes.

Though the traffic police made frantic calls to the GHMC officials to dispatch emergency teams, it was only after 6.30 pm that the personnel, equipped with equipment to cut trees, started clearing operations.