In August 2000, on the morning of Janamashtami, Hyderabad woke up not for the celebration but for a holocaust. The warning came from history like a ghost – the city heard the same words on 28 September, 1908, when a cyclone converted its streets into rivers. This time, too, did not rain; It roars as if the sky is open.
“There was no rain; it seemed that it was pouring water,” Sonu Singh remembers, now 43, Suryanagar, residents of Chikkadli. At the age of 18, he looked at the RTC Crossroads, Liberty, YMCA and Hussainsger channels with his family of half to half to half-built housing board building with his family of half-made housing board building as floods in the form of floods. The family looked helplessly because water swallowed one of his floors, tin-stricken house.
By night, it was not just home. The flood reached the Sundarya Vignana Kendram, a library residence in its basement, the prestigious cultural center. “We were trying to save the books by stacking them on high shelves, but on August 24, 2000, the water began to flow on the steps,” Venkana, now 45, which was clinging to a guava tree, brought the houses down after breaking the wall of Sri Ramsagar Basti. “We spent three days on the roof, waited.”
A fourth century later, the story repeated itself. On August 7 this year, when the water from the picket drain was swept away through the Nagar Nagar, it looked like a reply of that week in 2000. Singh’s family, still in the same area, captured the vision of walking outside the water outside on his phone. ,Aadat hai bachpan se (We are accustomed to this since childhood). We are not afraid of water, ”he says.
Back in 2000, Hyderabad recorded its heaviest rainfall in 46 years – 263.6 mm on August 23 and 246.2 mm the next day. The surplus drain of Hussainagar cut the neighborhood of some densely populated working-class of Ashok Nagar, where its banks’ houses were first to go. By the time the sky was cleaned, dozens of dead, thousands were displaced and more than 90 colonies were submerged, some 15 feet under water.
The government announced the ‘2,000 pre -Gratia’ to rebuild and reconstruct the victims. It also commissioned Geological Survey of India (GSI) to map weak areas. “It rained for the whole day. We collected aerial pictures of the entire city and identified geologists and pelochachels. Palocainles are ancient rivers or streams that have disappeared, but remain the key to understanding floods. ‘To avoid repetition, factors and suggestions to avoid repetition’. A parallel study by Kirloskar advisors to a parallel study for a ‘storing system’ The task of preparing a master plan was assigned: “Services include survey and design of all primary drains in the municipal area”.
Hyderabad has long been with flash floods, for its role during the siege of Golconda in 1687 from periodic inflammation of the Mussi River recorded by passengers such as Anugula Veeraswamy in 1830.
https://public.flourish.studio/visualization/24867457/
Hussainasagar, surrounded by encroachments and dried through surplus drains, returned to its ancient figure. It touched its lost coasts in the neighborhood of Brahminwadi, Uma Nagar, Kundan Bagh, Hussain Nagar Colony, Prakash Nagar, Renuka Nagar, Patigadda and densely populated working class. Even the necklace road of the then new defeat went into the form of water from Raj Bhawan Road, which dropped Ms. Maktha in the lake. Hindu When it came to light, he reported havoc. Singh said that unlike the sudden Mussi flood of 1908, the water gradually increased, reached its highest point on August 24 at 8 am. “Water reached that height,” Singh said pointing to the first floor balcony in Suranagar.
The limit of damage was later mapped. “Flood-affected areas in Talkanta and Barkatpura have been residential colonies by blocking the active channel of a major tributary of the Mussi River in recent times. Goes to the flood of houses raised with its curriculum,” GSI concluded in its report.
The warning was not without reference. At the same time, an analysis by the Center for Science and Environment revealed that Hyderabad had lost 3,245 hectares of water bodies between 1989 and 2001.
Comparison of 1908 with the notorious Musi floods was unavoidable. The disaster claimed more than 15,000 people, and promoted the manufacture of Osmansagar and Icetagar reservoirs. The Hyderabad Municipal Survey under Leonard Munan mapped the spread of floods with a red line. But the flood of 2000 was different – it was not a river but an urban disaster. It was played as five different regions spread over a week, triggering each man-made systems.
That year, three tanks above Hussainsagar started on 26 August with Dulapalli Cheruvu. Breach sent a wall of water to the Fox Sagar Lake, eventually swallowed New Bowenpali before putting it into Hussainagar. The boom surrounded Foreshore and ran down with the surplus drain through Ashok Nagar, Nalakunta and Barkatpura. The army used 40,000 sandbags and 2,000 cement bags to plug the violation in Fox Sagar.
On August 30, inaccessible Cheruvu developed a violation, forcing the army to step into and forced to plug it before water. Close to the city, Sheikhpet, Nadeem Colony and Langar Hose areas were killed by spreading from Sheikhapet Nala and Shah Hatim pond. At the bottom, the Hussainagar overflow pushed water into Gandhi Nagar, Ashoknagar, Nagamiahkanta, Tandpanta and Bagh Lingapalli. On the other side of the city, the newly constructed mini-tank in Safilguda collapsed on 26 August, which triggers a major catastrophe before it is controlled. And on the fringe, overflow Nakkavagu swallowed the ICRISAT campus, where the tragedy occurred when a rescue vehicle overturned, killing five people.
In Hyderabad, the south shield from the north is a standing that can be seen from the fact that Dalapalli lake is 1955 feet above. Fox Sagar Lake is at 1866 feet, Binpali Lake in 1770, Picket Nala in 1737, Hussainsagar in 1688 and Lingampali Park in 1588 – a drop of 367 feet within a distance of 17 km.
During the 1908 floods, the legendary civil engineer M.VISVESVARAA recorded that 221 tanks violated the MUSI catchment area. The disaster led the Nizam’s royal kingdom to build two large -scale reservoirs on the river – Osmansagar and Hayatasagar – to fill the city with floods. But the flood of August 2000, though less severe, should have been another significant twist, but it was not. To date, a heavy decline can still bring Hyderabad to its knees, which can submerge the neighborhoods that have been known, mapped and warned, but never secured.
In the March 2017 report, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) bare the problem. It was noted that the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) had “improved only 24 (34%), which were” among the 71 storm water drains “identified by M/s Kirlosakar advisors, and even incomplete stretch. Another advisor for 102 drains, flagged by the voies, said, “GHMC took only two stormy water drains”. The report concluded that the target of widening, deepening and building pavements to increase the carriage capacity of Nalas and limit the risk of floods was “not achieved despite a five -year lapse”.
According to the Meteorological Department of India, failure to resume the city’s drainage network came home again at home on October 13, 2020, when a cyclonic storm dumped 30 cm of rain within 24 hours. In just six hours, between the afternoon and 6 pm, about 14.7 centimeters of rain drowned a large part of the city, killing 33 people. The number of casualties was higher than in August 2000, killing 21 persons. The then Chief Minister of undivided Andhra Pradesh, N. Chandrababu Naidu had increased the loss of 700 crores of 700 crores from the 2000 floods, while in 2020, former Municipal Administration and Urban Development Minister KT Ram Rao damaged ₹ 679 crore. Two years later, the floods came back again, inspiring the government to start a strategic sewer development program. But this effort was clearly inadequate, as deluse was shown on August 7 of this year, when the transport center of Hyderabad’s Economic and Transport Hub Amirpet was brought to a standstill.
“The situation has only deteriorated. There is more urbanization and consolidation. The report of the Kirloskar advisors was scientific and technically sound, but political pressure stopped its implementation. The same thing happened with the report of the volunte solutions. Most encroachments are done by political players, which is against the government,” Nandanavanam project in the late 1990s. The project was finally given shelter after 2000 floods with the aim of beautifying the Mussi River and developing commercial property with riverfront.
But there is a long, unwanted lesson between 2000 and 2024 for which Hyderabad has made dear. In July 2024, a course improvement began with the construction of Hyderabad Disaster Management and Asset Protection Agency (Hydraa).
“Water reached here,” recalling a worker in a car showroom in Patty Colony, pointing to the place where the flood waters increased. A few days ago, Hydra demolished a building on the edge of the drain, yet the showroom itself was surrounded. While an employee left by 4.30 pm as the downpore intensified, others had to be taken out by emergency employees on a boat.
Tighten and encroachment mushrooms in Nalas are now more clear than 2000. Then, the disputed site of Fatima Ovis College was not present within Sulkam Cheruvu. Today it does, reminds how uncontrolled construction has deepened the weaknesses of the city.
But the danger to Hyderabad is not just from the unknown text of encroachment on the placenta and lakes. It also comes from a changing rain pattern. In the 20th century, the average annual rainfall of the city was 768.84 mm. In the first 24 years of this century, it has increased to 918.45 millimeters – an annual increase of 15 cm on average.
Twenty-five years later, people still live in the same flood-prone colonies, such as unsafe as before. The tragedy is not an unexpected but an imperative. Officers, engineers and residents are equally known which neighborhood will run after every downpore starting with a cyclonic storm in the Bay of Bengal. No question If Hyderabad will be flooded again. it is When?And How badly,
