HYDERABAD: Words fail to describe the agony of the flood-hit residents of Uma Maheshwar Colony in Kompally. Even though the rain has stopped, the flood situation remains grim. People are at their wits’ end as they do not know when the water will recede.
Fox Sagar, which overflowed on account of the recent rains, has sent waters into the colony in a deluge. As many as 600 houses have remained marooned as there is no way for anyone to reach them, except by undertaking a perilous walk in waist-high water.
As there are no signs of anyone arriving to help them, residents started leaving the colony with whatever belongings they could lay their hands on. They are taking with them household articles like utensils, cots, clothes, TV, fans, cooking stoves and gas cylinders in transport vehicles.
In the absence of boats, residents are using inflated tyre tubes to shift old people as well as household articles. A few hundred residents, who are reluctant to move out of their colony, are taking shelter in the nearby under construction buildings, which unfortunately are in the FTL of Fox Sagar.
We’re not beggars, say victims left in the lurch
No one reached the colony to help the residents out of their present predicament in the last four days, during which they suffered silently, with no power, no cooking gas, no food and water. “I lost everything in the floods. I procured steel utensils and other household articles for my daughter’s marriage for her to start a family. All of them have been washed away,” says Nainjeet Kaur, a blacksmith. She along with her children are now taking shelter at a community hall turned relief centre in Kompally.
“We’re being humiliated when we ask for milk and food for our children. We are not beggars. But we are being treated like ones. No official visited us and inquired about what we need. We led a respectful life. We have our own houses. But they are under water. As there is no other alternative, we are seeking food and water. It hurts when volunteers throw food packets at us as though we are beggars,” Anjamma, anther resident, says.
Karima Begum, a young woman who was stranded in the colony, was in grief as she lost all her educational certificates — including SSC, Intermediate and BSc certificates — as well as her Aadhaar card in the deluge. “Without my certificates, how can I get a job?” she asks, while adding: “As it is we have lost every thing and we are starving.
Now on top of this, I do not have my certificates.” An angry housewife, Renuka used choicest abuses to hit out at the politicians for doing nothing when they are facing hardships. “You are supposed to be with us when we are in a difficulty. We are in a worst ever jam and no politician has bothered to visit us. They enjoy luxury life at our expense.” “My entire family is on the streets. We have lost everything. We are looking into an uncertain future.
This is the moment when we need support, but it is hard to find,” another woman Bharati says, fighting back tears. “We wanted to go to our relatives’ house but they were not willing to accommodate us because of the prevailing pandemic,” says Md Anwar.