Southern States - Karnataka   

Many areas flooded in Bangalore

By Our Staff Reporter

BANGALORE April 29. The heavy rain that lashed Bangalore on Monday brought down the walls of four houses and flooded 250 others at Kaveripuram and Ambedkarnagar in Kamakshipalya police limits. Although there was no casualty, residents were struggling to remove water, which had destroyed many of their valuables by Tuesday morning.

The houses that were damaged were on the periphery of an unfinished drain. The flooding was apparently triggered by clogging of manholes leading to the drain, and overflowing of the Kamakshipalya Tank. The manholes were blocked by debris and garbage. The drain was to be remodelled with RCC box culverts.

Compounding the problem were some old BWSSB water pipes across a bridge over Magadi Road, which obstructed the flow of water. Apparently, the old pipes were not removed even after a new pipeline was laid across the bridge.

In at least 80 houses, rainwater destroyed documents and washed away household articles. Residents stayed awake throughout the night, striving to keep their valuables away from water.

Water entered low-lying areas in Hanumanthanagar, Basaveshwaranagar, Rajajinagar, Kamakshipalya, Amarajyothinagar, Moodalapalya, Marenahalli Prashanathanagar, Vijayanagar, Ranganatha Colony, Bappujinagar, and Gayathrinagar.

The Mayor, C.M.Nagaraj, the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) Commissioner, M.R.Srinivasa Murthy, engineers, and other senior officials visited the affected areas today and pacified the enraged residents. They promised them that their grievances would be redressed.

Once again the BMP administration finds itself ill-equipped to handle problems arising out of heavy rain. Even as people in the affected areas struggled to protect their belongings from rainwater, the BMP did little to help them. Those who called the BMP control room received no reply, and most of the time, the telephone was engaged. People who called fire services were asked to contact the BMP control room. "I think they keep the phone off the hook during emergencies,'' Jiyaji of Marenahalli, who tried to seek help from the BMP control room, said. He tried to contact the control room for an hour, but in vain. "They advertise that the people should contact the control room during emergencies. But you can never reach them when you need help,'' he added.

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