The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Nature’s fury breaks boundaries, snuffs out lives

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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Nature’s fury breaks boundaries, snuffs out lives

Staff Reporter

Wet walls cave in killing inmates in various parts of the city; injured undergo treatment at Osmania General Hospital

— Photos: Mohd. Yousuf

Devastating: Relatives wailing over the bodies of a woman and her child who were killed at Filmnagar; (Right) Huge boulder slides down on house at Mangalhat on Saturday.

HYDERABAD: When Mir Hasan Ali Khan and his family members were at dinner on Friday night, little did they know it would be their last supper together.

Death came calling on Hasan (70), his wife Shahmunnisa Begum (65) and son Mir Isaq Ali Khan Zaheer (40) in the wee hours of Saturday when the wall of their house at Panjeshah near Gulzar Houz collapsed due to incessant rain. Two other members of the family -- Raheemunnisa and Faheemunnisa – suffered injuries. They were treated as out-patients at the Osmania General Hospital.

The rain-soaked wall collapsed around 3.30 a.m. “It was raining heavily all night. We were asleep in the room when the wall came crashing down. It was pitch dark and my brother screamed for help. I tried to rescue him in vain. It happened in a jiffy,” recalled Hasan’s daughter Raheemunnissa.

“After hearing a huge thud, we ran for shelter. It was raining continuously and live electric wires were dangling around. By the time we could reach them, our family members were trapped under the debris. We could pull them out only after 7 a.m.,” said Hasan’s relative Faheemunnisa. She suffered injuries on her leg. Hasan is a retired employee while his son Zaheer is labourer in a vegetable market.

Relatives of Hasan alleged that despite informing the Police Control Room immediately about the incident, authorities arrived after couple of hours. “Had the officials arrived in time, I could have saved my brother,” fumed Raheemunnissa.

Killed in sleep

In another incident, Sheshu, 23, and his wife, Narayanamma, 20, died in sleep when the wall of an old age home collapsed on their huts near Gokul Flats in Miyapur on Saturday morning. The couple’s two-year-old son Sudhir escaped unhurt .

The couple hailing from Prakasam district were working as labourers in the city, the police said. They used to work with the local labour contractor and erected a hut along with other relatives close to an old age home. The compound wall collapsed around 5 a.m. leaving the couple dead on the spot.

Woman, daughter die

A woman and her daughter got killed after the wall of the single-room house collapsed on their hut at Basavatarakam Nagar in Filmnagar in the wee hours of Saturday.

Death was instant for Nagamani, 27, and her daughter, Sridevi, 7. The woman’s one-year-old daughter, Bhavani and younger son, Babu, 3, and her father, Krishna, escaped unhurt in the incident.

The Hyderabad Collector Navin Mittal and Khairatabad MLA P. Vishnu Vardhan Reddy visited the spot.

Man washed away

An unidentified pedestrian reportedly got washed away after slipping into a nala overflowing with rain water in L.B. Nagar police station area on Saturday night.

The incident occurred around 7 p.m. near Sridhar Colony between Gayathrinagar and Zillelaguda.

The unidentified man in his early 30s was walking beside the nala when a speeding DCM van came from opposite direction. “I saw the victim jumping to a side to escape the van. And he slipped into the nala. By the time I rushed there, he got washed away,” Narsing, a village panchayat employee, told the police.

A search for the victim was launched.

A huge thud jolted the four siblings of out of their sleep. Even before Asma, 19, Parveen, 16, Nasreen, 13, and Yousuf, 6, realised what had happened, their tiny two-room house at Alla Banda in Mangalhat collapsed resulting in minor injuries to them on Saturday morning.

But their father Nazir Hussain who was sleeping in the adjacent room got killed by a boulder that fell on the roof of their house. “Still I hoped he was safe but the neighbours told me that a boulder slid from the hill behind and fell on our house killing my father,” Asma cried recalling the tragedy that orphaned the four siblings.

There was no chance of rescuing Hussain. “The boulder weighing over 5,000 kilos hit the room, in which he was sleeping. He got crushed under it . Death was instant,” a neighbour Mumtaj who managed to pull out the driver’s children from the rubbles said.

The driver’s family lost all their possessions . The Mangalhat police rushed them to the Osmania General Hospital.

Electrocuted

Mazid Ali Khan, 35, was electrocuted when he tried to pump out rain water from the cellar of his house at Muradnagar in Asifnagar on Saturday night. Khan works with a private firm in Saudi Arabia and came to the city recently on some personal work.

The downpour on from Saturday morning resulted in inundation of his locality.

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