Cyclone Montha: Telangana's Tri-Cities Submerged; Hundreds Forced to Evacuate

The residual onslaught of Cyclone Montha has inflicted severe disruptions across Warangal, Hanamkonda, and Kazipet, transforming urban thoroughfares into impassable waterways and submerging residential enclaves in the late hours of October 29, 2025. Torrential downpours, exceeding 150 mm in isolated pockets, overwhelmed rudimentary stormwater channels, compelling residents to navigate knee-deep inundations to access essential services. As Telangana's second-largest metropolitan agglomeration, the tri-cities—home to over 1.2 million inhabitants—faced compounded vulnerabilities due to the cyclone's northwest trajectory, which deposited moisture-laden bands from the Bay of Bengal, exacerbating pre-existing drainage deficiencies and exposing the fragility of municipal planning in flood-prone terrains.

Absence of a comprehensive underground sewerage and drainage network has rendered Warangal's civic framework woefully inadequate, with each monsoon cycle unveiling the chasm between developmental rhetoric and tangible execution. The Greater Warangal Municipal Corporation (GWMC) stands accused of systemic lapses, including the failure to desilt primary nalas and tertiary storm drains prior to the cyclone's approach, resulting in backflows of untreated sewage that contaminated public spaces and potable water sources. Overflowing manholes ejected effluents onto arterial roads, converting them into fetid rivulets and prompting health advisories from district authorities on vector-borne disease risks, while low-lying neighborhoods in Hanamkonda witnessed ingress of floodwaters through breached embankments, displacing over 500 families.

Evacuation operations commenced at dawn on October 30, with municipal teams relocating affected populations to designated relief shelters equipped with basic amenities in Hanamkonda and Warangal. Resourceful homeowners resorted to manual bailing with buckets and improvised pumps, yet persistent seepage from saturated subsoils prolonged the ordeal, hindering restoration of electricity and communication lines severed by gusts up to 60 km/h. Community leaders have petitioned the state government for immediate fiscal allocations under the National Disaster Response Fund, decrying the GWMC's allocation of merely Rs 45 crore for urban renewal in the 2025-26 budget—insufficient against an estimated Rs 200 crore in cyclone-induced damages to infrastructure and livelihoods.

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In parallel developments, rail connectivity under the South Central Railway (SCR) jurisdiction has been fully restored following the abatement of cyclonic conditions, as confirmed by Chief Public Relations Officer A. Sridhar. Approximately 130 trains—constituting five percent of routine schedules—were curtailed across three days to prioritize passenger safety amid gale-force winds and track inundations, yet 95 percent of operations persisted uninterrupted through contingency routing. This resilience underscores proactive interventions, including pre-emptive vegetation clearance and signal reinforcements, which mitigated broader disruptions despite the cyclone's landfall near Kakinada on October 28, where it inflicted fatalities and agricultural devastation spanning 87,000 hectares in Andhra Pradesh.

As cleanup initiatives intensify with deployment of 50 heavy-duty pumps and sanitation crews, residents demand accountability through a comprehensive audit of GWMC's pre-monsoon preparedness protocols, echoing critiques from environmental NGOs on unchecked urbanization encroaching upon natural wetlands. The episode reinforces the imperative for integrated urban flood management strategies, incorporating climate-resilient designs and community-driven monitoring, to avert recurrent crises in Telangana's evolving metropolitan landscapes.

Also Read: Cyclone Montha Kills One in Andhra Pradesh, Weakens After Landfall