Floods brought by heavy rains and overflowing rivers across large swathes of western and southern India have killed at least 60 people since Wednesday and damaged rice, cotton and other crops worth billions of rupees, officials said.
The worst affected state was Telangana, where excessive unseasonal rainfall on Wednesday and yesterday flooded its capital Hyderabad, home to major companies and startups such as Microsoft, Accenture, Amazon and TCS.
The rains damaged crops worth at least Rs20bon , the state chief minister’s office said in a statement late yesterday.
In Telangana 50 people died, while in Maharashtra 10 people were killed because of wall collapses, electrocution and drowning in overflowing streams, officials from the two states said yesterday.
Authorities in Hyderabad declared a holiday yesterday and asked residents to stay indoors.
Daily life has been disrupted in Hyderabad as many parts of the city lost power in the flooding.
Residents posted pictures on Twitter of floating cars, waterlogged homes, offices and streets.
A few districts in Maharashtra state received more than 100mm rainfall in the last 24 hours and the state, including its capital Mumbai, is likely to receive heavy to very heavy rainfall today, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said in its daily forecast.
The rains have damaged rice paddies in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, while cotton, soybean and pulses were damaged in Maharashtra and Karnataka, traders said.
“Soybean, pigeon peas and black matpe crops have been damaged just before harvesting. The quality of the harvested crop has also deteriorated,” said Nitin Kalantri, a trader from Latur, Maharashtra.
Telangana and Maharashtra have so far in October received 143% and 78% more rainfall than normal respectively, according to data compiled by IMD.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray said all disaster relief agencies, police, fire brigades, and medical services have been deployed to render assistance to the people.
“NDRF teams have been deployed in Osmanabad, at Pandharpur and Solapur, and Baramati in Pune, while the army, navy and air force have been kept on high alert to help out in any emergencies,” he said.
Compounding the rain’s havoc were rising waters in several big and small rivers like Chandrabhaga (Solapur), Panchganga (Kolhapur), Terna (Latur & Osmanabad) and in Pune.
Flood waters gushed into huge tracts of farmlands, several towns and villages, with people seen standing in knee-deep or even chest-deep water in some areas.
As a precautionary measure, more than 1,500 people were shifted to safer locations by the local district authorities as flood levels reached alarming levels.
Mumbai and surrounding districts of Raigad, Thane and Palghar were lashed by heavy rains though there was no disruption to normal routine.
Residents are evacuated from a flooded neighbourhood after heavy rainfall in Hyderabad yesterday.60 killed as rains wreak havoc, crops damaged
