 "rain, waterlogging, rainfall, Delhi")
Schools were advised to remain closed for two days from Friday after the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) predicted heavy rains in Hyderabad and other areas that were already battered by multiple spells of rains and associated flooding in the last ten days.
Low lying areas in and around Hyderabad city have been facing inundation while the entire road network in the city was badly damaged by rains resulting in hours of traffic jams on all routes.
Telangana government and Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) have put their administrative machinery on a high alert and engaged dozens of emergency teams to undertake sport repairs and clearing exercise on roads and drainage system in the city for the past couple of days.
Hyderabad received 361 per cent excess rainfall from September 1-22 as the city while the surrounding districts too witnessed high rain fall in shortest possible time ranging from 2-20 centimetres during this month.
City is witnessing heavy rains across longer spells besides widespread flooding after a gap of 16 years.
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With commuters getting stranded for hours on roads leading to the city's IT hub partly due to worsened road conditions, the state IT and Municipal Administration Minister K T Rama Rao called a separate meeting with the representatives of the IT companies and the department officials on the immediate steps to ensure smooth traffic flow.
The minister instructed the officials to restore the road network with temporary repairs on all routes connecting the High-Tech City on a priority basis.
Hitech City and Gachibowli areas where the global IT and Financial Services companies run their operations with almost 4 lakh strong IT workforce here remained chocked due to heavy traffic congestion.
After Chennai and Bengaluru now Hyderabad is going through a similar kind of difficulties caused by damaged infrastructure and rains.
Some of the IT companies have advised their employees to work from home in case of inability in reaching the workplace after duly intimating their superiors, according to a company official.
Several districts in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have also been experiencing heavy rains and flooding with the low lying areas facing floods due to overflowing rivers and tank breaches across the districts.
On Thursday rail traffic between Hyderabad and Guntur came to a grinding halt after a small stretch of rail track in Guntur district washed away in the floods.
Palnadu in Guntur district received the highest rainfall of 22 centimetres while the average rainfall of 7 centimetres was recorded in district.
AP chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu held an emergency meeting with his ministerial colleagues and officials to review the measures being taken to address the flood situation.
National Disaster Response Force teams and the army were asked to stand by for rescue operations as the weather department expects heavy rains in the next 48 hours.
Meanwhile, the irrigation department officials had opened gates of Prakasham Barrage on River Krishna at Vijayawada and letting over 1.3 lakh cusecs of flood water flow into the sea as more inflows were expected from upstream areas.
