At least 26 people were killed, nine of them in the state capital Hyderabad as skies opened up across Andhra Pradesh and incessant rains battered several districts. A cloud burst over Hyderabad resulted in one of the heaviest rainfalls in the recent years as the city recorded a record of 13 centimeters of rains in five hours. Nine people were killed in different parts of the city in incidents of house collapse. As the rains continued throughout last night and entire Saturday, water entered in hundreds of houses both in old and the new city. More than a dozen people were injured and were rushed to the hospitals. Heavy rains, under the spell of depression in Bay of Bengal also hit hard coastal Andhra districts of Srikakulam, Vizianagaram, Visakhapatnam, East and West Godavari, Krishna and Guntur. There were also widespread rains in Karimnagar, Adilabad and Warangal districts. Apart from Hyderabad deaths were reported from Krishna, Medak, West Godavari, Visakhapatnam and Nalgonda. As the heavy rains and floods in rivulets in rain hit areas submerged the roads and rails at several places, the traffic came to a grinding halt and hundreds of vehicles were stranded on National Highway No. 9 linking Hyderabad and Vijaywada. Krishna Express train was stopped at Dornakal due to the flooding of tracks. Life was hit hardest in Hyderabad where many major roads and junctions like Moazzam Jahi Market, Nampally, Basheerbagh, Khairatabad, Punjagutta were under three feet of water. Hundreds of vehicles were stranded on busy roads like Pungagutta to Kukatpally, Malakpet, Dilsukhnagar, Miyapur, Begumpet-Secunderabad road. The Hyderabad district collector Navin Mittal said that the rains started last evening and were still continuing. “The downpour was so heavy that one third of our annual rains fell in just five hours leaving parts of city inundated,” he said. Relief measures have been taken up at a large scale to provide succor to the people whose houses were inundated. __
