Rain fury returns to pound Bangalore

DHNS

• Two children missing, many trees uprooted

Bangalore, 25 September 2010: The season’s heaviest rainfall of 113.4 mm pounded Bangalore on Friday, sending the City into a frightening tizzy.

 

Two children were reported missing after the skies opened up, following a lull, catching citizens unawares in the evening. Many trees were uprooted and several walls collapsed.

 

Traffic snarls and overflowing drains added to the woes of residents in the low-lying areas, with Bangalore’s infrastructure weaknesses coming to the fore.

 

At Kodigehalli, Sahakaranagar, two children who had gone for tuition on their bicycles went missing. Although their bicycles had been found, there was no sight of Nandikesh and Chiraag. The police are yet to confirm the incident.

 

Messy disorder
The premises of the newly inaugurated Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) Bus Stand at Shanthinagar, which added a swanky Traffic and Transit Management Centre to its list of attractions on Thursday, was a picture of messy infrastructure and utter disorder after Friday’s heavy rain.

 

Areas close to the Central Business District bore the brunt of rain fury as the City recorded 113.4 mm of rainfall.

 

The showers threw life out of gear at Shanthinagar, Sudhamnagar, Lalbagh Road, JC Road, Minerva Circle, Adugodi, Viveknagar, Koramangala and Hosur Road.

 

A bus depot and a workshop located next to the BMTC Head Office were under knee-deep water, leaving 35 employees trapped inside the complex. Being a low-lying area, the premises were water-logged and clogged roads bringing traffic to a standstill.
A portion of the Gali Anjaneya Temple, Mysore Road, was flooded. A Ganesh temple was also submerged partially at Goripalya.

 

The return of buses to the BMTC depot at the end of the day’s operations only added to the misery. Employees working in the second shift from 2 to 10 pm in the Depot No 3 were stranded inside the inundated premises for at least two hours. Many of them came out by scaling the wall adjoining the Depot No 2 which was inundated.

 

Annual affair

“This is nothing new, it happens every year; for it is located in a low-lying area with a drain close by,” B H Pujari, a driver, told Deccan Herald.

 

According to Pujari, the bus stand was built without properly bridging the lake. “The BMTC spends crores on building swanky terminals but it does nothing to address this problem,” he complained.

 

In Western Bangalore, Bapujinagar, Mysore Road Junction, Journalists Colony, JC Road and areas near the City Market were heavily water-logged with huge traffic jams.

 

In the east, Adugodi, Suranjan Das Marg, Dhobi Ghat, Kalyan Nagar, Frazer Town and parts of Bannerghatta Road were also flooded.

 

Havoc across the State too

The rains that began on Thursday night across the State claimed a life and caused large-scale damage to crops and washing away nearly 500 houses, reports DHNS from Bangalore.