Rain leaves Hyderabad powerless for hours

HYDERABAD: Gusty winds up to 78 km per hour accompanied by heavy rains left a trail of destruction across the city, resulting in power outages that lasted up to 20 hours in many areas. According to moderate estimates, 637 trees were uprooted, with most of them falling on electricity wires.

“Power supply was snapped around 7 pm on Monday. Due to power outage, we could not start the motor to pump water and faced a lot of issues,” said George Jacob, a resident of Bhoodevi Nagar in Alwal where the residents were without electricity for almost 20 hours till Tuesday evening.
According to Telangana State Southern Power Distribution Company Limited (TSSDPCL), over 4,000 complaints were registered in a span of 24 hours with the most number of complaints coming from Paradise, Secunderabad Cantonment area, Habsiguda, Asmangad, Azamabad and Saifabad divisions.
“The city usually requires power supply of up to 2,900 MW every day. However, due to rain and gale, the power supply came down to 1,400 MW. Almost 90 per cent complaints were resolved early on Tuesday,” said G Srinivas Reddy, director (operations), TSSDPCL, adding that a control room was also set up to resolve consumer grievances.
Uprooted trees and electricity poles, feeder breakdowns, and minor failures such as tripping led to power outages in several areas extending up to Tuesday evening, leaving residents sleepless for a whole night.
Many angry residents of Bhoodevi Nagar went to the Lal Bazaar electricity office to register their complaints. “Being a consumer, we deserve to know when the power supply will be restored. However, the officials failed to provide us with any information,” rued Jacob.
Almost all the consumers who registered grievances with the local fuse office complained of lack of response from officials. Grievances over maintenance were galore as multiple complaints poured in not only about outages but also about frequent interruptions, low voltage, fallen poles, and wires burning and snapping, endangering lives.
“The power supply was snapped at 7 pm on Monday and was restored only on Tuesday morning for an hour from 8 am to 9 am. Throughout the day, there were frequent interruptions. We had no clue about when the power will be restored,” said Gaurav Gupta, an engineer and resident of Diamond Point, Secunderabad.
There was deluge of online complaints on social media too, with many seeking information as to when the power supply will be restored. Following complaints, the TSSDPCL set up a control room and deployed 760 personnel and senior officials to restore power supply in the city. The rain and gale also led to cracks to the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation building. Apart from this, many big advertisement boards and flexi banners came crashing down.