E-Paper
Over 150 evacuated from flood-hit Sircilla in Telangana
The district is among the most affected areas in the state, with over 150 people evacuated from their homes. District superintended of police Rahul Hegde told Hindustan Times that water bodies were filling up due to heavy rains, which resulted in floods across parts of the Sircilla town and other rural areas.
The Telangana government Tuesday evacuated several people from the low-lying areas of Rajanna-Sircilla district, among other places inundated due to heavy rains that hit the state.
The district is among the most affected areas in the state, with over 150 people evacuated from their homes. District superintended of police Rahul Hegde told Hindustan Times that water bodies were filling up due to heavy rains, which resulted in floods across parts of the Sircilla town and other rural areas.
“In rural areas also water bodies are overflowing, so some roads were closed. Wherever it is receding slowly, the routes are opening up. Sircilla town flooded as there was a lot of rain, and we had to evacuate people from areas where rainwater reached two to three feet high,” Hegde said.
The state government also deployed a section of its Disaster Response Force (DRF) to the flood-hit district. The DRF works under the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC).
“Recently, DRF teams with 25 members were deployed at Siricilla Municipality for Monsoon Rescue operations. Incharge officers are appointed to supervise all the complainants attended by the DRF Teams. A dedicated Control Room established under the Directorate of EV&DM works round the clock with robust communication system and is closely monitoring the situation at the field,” said a press note from the GHMC.
Given the weather warning by IMD, the chief minister of Telangana K. Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR), who is in New Delhi currently, on Tuesday asked state chief secretary Somesh Kumar to hold a meeting with all district collectors. Kumar, in a teleconference with collectors of 20 flood-affected districts, took stock of the situation and asked all officers to take steps and prevent loss of life or damage to any property.
On Tuesday, ex-MLA and former cabinet minister Eatala Rajender who left the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), also provided breakfast and lunch for those whose homes were flooded in the Huzurabad assembly seat (Karimnagar district)
Rajender resigned from the seat in June, after which he joined the BJP. He has been campaigning there ever since he resigned. Similarly, ex-MP and TRS MLC (daughter of KCR) K. Kavitha also provided food for people whose houses were flooded in Nizamabad town
Twitter was awash with videos of the Sircilla district collectorate getting flooded. Congress leader and ex-member of Parliament Ponnam Prabhakar also posted a similar video, questioning the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi’s infrastructure work in Rajanna-Sircilla district.
However, Hegde said that only the front portion of the collectorate’s premises was inundated and not the actual building. The rains were in accordance with the Indian Meteorological Department’s (IMD) alert for Telangana, which had issued an ‘extremely heavy’ rainfall warning for northern districts of Telangana for September 6 and 7.
Warangal and some parts of Karimnagar district also witnessed flooding on Tuesday.
Other parts of Telangana which witnessed flooding due to heavy rains were Nizamabad, Warangal and Karimnagar districts. In fact, in Nizamabad, the yet to be inaugurated collector office was also flooded on Tuesday. Similar situations were seen in Warangal town as well, where heavy rains battered roads apart from flooding other parts of it. However, no casualties were reported so far.
In Hyderabad, parts of the city witnessed intermittent rainfall. However, the showers were not heavy, which eased the situation a bit, given that the state machinery and the public were expecting another flood-like situation.
According to the IMD, on Tuesday, about 20 places in the state, especially the flood-hit areas, witnessed rainfall of over 200 millimetres. Nallabelly in Hanumkonda district recorded the highest rain at 258 mm, while Huzurabad in Karimnagar followed closely with 253.8 mm.
