As many as 16 people lost their lives due to the rains pounding Hyderabad on Wednesday. With the latest deaths, the toll till Wednesday night rose to 24 including eight members of two families, who lost their lives after a large boundary wall collapsed on their houses in Chandrayangutta area late on Tuesday. Night-long rain has laid siege to Hyderabad city, with hundreds of localities submerged, stranded and besieged by Wednesday morning. It left a trail of devastation and casualties in the twin cities prompting the NDRF, Army and State police to swing into action to rescue the affected people from the inundated areas. In what is being termed by the Meteorology department as the highest in the month of October since 1891, the city has received an average of 17 cm rainfall. The IMD station at Begumpet recorded 19.2 cm, double from the previous highest of 9.8 cm recorded in 2013. In a tragic incident, the flooding in Ali Nagar, a neighbourhood in the Mailardevpally police station limits, swept away nine persons, including minors, of the same family. Mohammed Abdul Taher Qureshi, the inconsolable sole survivor, too was washed away in the strong current. But, it was his younger brother who saved him in the nick of time, before himself being swept away. He is currently reported as missing. According to Mailardevpally police, bodies of two of Mr Qureshi’s relatives were fished out at a distance from his home, in a nala in Falaknuma. Police identified the victims as Darafsha Qureshi (36) and Farzana Tabassum (33). The others, identified as Amera Bibi (8), Abdul Wahab Qureshi (5), Abdul Quddus Qureshi (42), Abdul Wasay Qureshi (50), Abdul Wajid Qureshi (39), and Humera Tabassum (24) are still missing. Mohammed Abdul Taher Qureshi said that the family was standing on a chabutra (raised platform) near their house, when the unrelenting stream swept the victims away even as the chabutra gave way. In separate cases, a mother and daughter – Suvarna (45) and Shravanthi (15) – were killed in Ibrahimpatnam, on the outskirts of Hyderabad, after their house collapsed due to incessant rain.