The 1908 Musi river floods are remembered as a calamity today, and it is etched into Hyderabad’s history books forever. But it is more than just a historic event, as it also changed the very course of the city’s history and its landscape. The floods destroyed the city in entirety, but it also made the administration rethink its priorities.
Rainfall is typically measured in mm (millimetres), And if showered above 100mm (3.9 inches), its considered to be heavy rains now in Hyderabad. In 1908, The recorded rains on 28th and 29th of September at Shamshabad was 18 inches in 48 hours. Resulting in the worst floods the city witnessed in its recorded history.
Not only did it lead to a total collapse of the infrastructure in many parts of the city, it is said that the situation was so bad that Mahbub Ali Pasha, the reigning sixth Nizam (of the Hyderabad state) in 1908, himself went around the city in his car to help people.
In total, 14 major floods are believed to have hit Hyderabad in the past, with the last one being in 1908, which damaged about 59000+ houses, washed away bridges and killed thousands of people.
The flood changed two things: Hyderabad’s core public infrastructure, and medical facilities of the city, which were completely overhauled and modernized by Osman Ali Khan, the last Nizam of Hyderabad.
Both the infrastructure and medical facilities were completely overhauled and modernized by Osman Ali Khan, Mahbub Ali Pasha’s son and the last Nizam.
The birth of the City Improvement Board (CIB), was constituted by Osman Ali Khan to develop Hyderabad, in 1912.
Osmania Hospital, the High Court, Govt. City College, etc are a part of the skyline when one looks across the Musi River. All three were designed by the architect Vincent Esh, and were built around the same time under the CIB. Even slums were redeveloped under CIB.
The city, which was also hit by the plague after 1911, was rapidly developed, with modern institutions like the High Court, Osmania General Hospital, Kachiguda railway station, etc. apart from spacious housing, and modern markets for the public.
Medical Facilities:
Under Mahbub Ali Pasha, in 1888, the Chloroform Commission was set-up to study the usage of chloroform as anesthesia while treating patients. Two commissions had been set-up, to examine the dangers of using the chemical then. It was one of the most important medical experiments of its time, which was in fact carried out at the state-run Afzal Gunj hospital.
City's public infrastructure & Sir Visweswaraya:
The 1908 floods not only damaged about 59000+ houses, washed away bridges and killed thousands of people, But also, breached huge water tanks in the city.
There were 788 tanks in a basin of 860 square miles of the Musi River. Of the total tanks, 221 were breached, which resulted in the catastrophic floods. The Afzal Gunj hospital, over which Osmania Hospital stands today, was also believed to be extensively wrecked during the floods.
The then Nizam (6th), Mahbub Ali Pasha, called for Visweswaraya, as he wanted an engineer to examine the damage and to suggest measures to essentially make the city flood-proof. Visveswaraya, who was traveling in Italy in 1908, had eventually joined as a Special Consulting Engineer for the Hyderabad state’s government on April 15, 1909.
The legendary engineer, after carefully carrying out extensive surveys pointed out that the damaging floods occurred because many water tanks in the city had been breached.
He proposed 2 water dams, Osman Sagar (known a Gandipet lake) and Himayat Sagar, which today have a full-tank capacity of 45 million gallons per day (MGD). Hyderabad’s daily water supply today is about 462 MGD, of which only about 15 MGD is now drawn from both the historic lakes. oth the reservoirs were built during the time of Mir Osman Ali Khan, the last Nizam.
Like that, the Musi River was finally tamed, and Hyderabad was never flooded again.
The history of Osmania General Hospital:
OGH was completed in 1925 (it began operations in or around 1917), and is Hyderabad’s first-ever modern allopathic public hospital. It is a testament to the development that the city witnessed in the first half of the 20th century, which equally concentrated on the general public.
The article is written with the source of information from newsmetre and The Hyderabad History Project Twitter handle.
