Sunday, September 28, 2014

Hyderabad’s worst catastrophe occurred this day, 106 years ago.



A devastating flood occurred in Hyderabad due to the swelling of River Musi on 28th September 1908, causing widespread devastation, and killing over 15,000 people, rendering 80,000 homeless and affecting another 6,00,00 people in some form or the other. Apart from houses, bridges across the river and a few hospitals got washed away killing the staff and patients. This is the worst catastrophe experienced by Hyderabad, and thank GOD! Hyderabad has been safe from Musi since then, that is for the last 106 years and hope it will never happen again.
In the above photographs, you see an almost dried-up Musi as it looks today and on the farther bank the huge Osmania General Hospital which was built after the Nizam Hospital at that location got washed away in this ‘Great Musi Flood of 1908’. At the point where you see my wife, Lalitha and my granddaughter, Sudhiksha standing, the river was flowing at a height of about 12 feet above the road which means it was certainly flowing 6 feet above the head of Lalitha. And in some other inhabited areas of the City, the water was flowing at a height of 15 to 20 feet! What a frightening scenario!
River Musi is a tributary of River Krishna. Musi originates 90 kilometres to the west of Hyderabad in Ananthagiri Hills near Vikarabad town of Ranga Reddy District, and flows east almost all its course. It flows through Hyderabad dividing it into Old and New Cities. After covering a distance of 240 kilometres it joins River Krishna at Vadapally in Nalgonda District. Nowadays, barring the rainy season, the Musi in Hyderabad is almost dry and serves mostly as a sewerage canal.
The pictures below are from the internet, courtesy the owners, reflect the tragedy of 28th September 1908…flooded areas, broken bridges, fallen houses, collapsed roofs, bare walls, tangled mass of trees, the agony on the faces of the people and so on. May such calamity never affect Hyderabad again.


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