Rains continue across Telangana, emergency operations in full swing

HYDERABAD: A massive rescue operation was launched by the Indian Air Force at Kundanpally village in Telangana's Jayashankar Bhupalpally district, on Saturday, after 10 farmers were left stranded in the floodwaters. It took two IAF helicopters, pressed into action on orders from minister K T Rama Rao, close to four hours to bring the farmers to safety.
The incident took place when the farmers went to retrieve the motors from their agricultural wells around 10am. Before they realised, the stream connecting their farmland started overflowing due to heavy rains forcing them to climb onto a tree to take shelter. From there, the farmers made multiple calls to the police and relatives. Pushed into action, villagers alerted the local MLA Gandra Venkata Ramana Reddy and panchayat raj minister, Errabelli Dayakar Rao, who in turn got in touch with KT Rama Rao.
On KTR's orders, chief secretary Somesh Kumar coordinated the rescue. Two IAF helicopters arrived around 2pm and later dropped them at an agriculture field nearby.
In another incident near Baswapur bridge in Siddipet's Koheda mandal, a lorry driver, M Shankar, went missing after his vehicle was washed away by the flood water early on Saturday morning. While the IAF was called in here too, the chopper could not take off from Hakimpet on time owing to bad weather. When the team finally arrived at the site 11.45am, the driver was 'missing', said local authorities. The mishap occured when Shanker (45) and a cleaner were heading from Siddipet to Husnabad. S Mahender, ACP Husnabad, said, "The driver was travelling in a sand lorry when a stream nearby was in spate at 5.30am. Caught in it, he held onto a tree waving to villagers to rescue him." As news reached finance minister Harish Rao, he ordered the police commissioner and NDRF to launch a rescue operation to save the man. "But in the meantime, the man tried to crossover the floodwaters and villagers lost sight of him," the ACP added.
In a third incident in Karimnagar, a woman police officer led a team to rescue a biker stranded on a flyover in Huzurabad police stations limits, late on Friday. Mahender, who works in a wine shop, was stuck on a causeway while returning home after his stock arrived late. Stranded with water from a stream gushing, Mahender was holding on to his bike and a pillar for support for nearly an hour. Alerted about the incident, inspector Madhavi led a six-member team that reached the spot around an hour later. "The team members used a stick to check the depth of the floodwaters. Each member using a rope to lead one another on. When we reached near Mahender, we threw the rope at him and he was rescued," confirmed one police official involved in the operation.