The city was confronted with unexpected torrential rains late on Monday night, which continued into the wee hours of Tuesday morning. The rains caused much havoc on the streets, including heavy inundation and tree falls.
The situation in the city on the I-Day morning reminded many of the flash floods the city saw in July 2016. Several areas including Koramangala, HSR Layout, Shantinagar, Wilson Garden, K R Puram, Anugraha Layout, Ulsoor, Vivek Nagar, Murugesh Palya on Old Airport Road and Gurappana Palya on Bannerghatta Road, have been inundated with almost knee-level water on the streets leaving residents stranded in their homes.
Koramangala, worst-hit
Koramangala seems to be one of the worst hit areas. Several tree falls have also been reported from these areas. Even as BBMP officials have been pressed into action, residents have been complaining of lack of adequate response from civic officials.
Mr. Sethumadhava, a resident of Anugraha Layout near Kodichikkanahalli, said that the entire area was flooded and there was water of over 5 feet on the streets, leaving the residents trapped. “BBMP officials took over four hours to reach the spot after our calls. This for a known flood prone area which was flooded even during the July 2016 floods,” he said.
The layout was one of the worst hit during the last year’s floods. “Water has flooded ground floors of most houses in the area. We have been working to flush out water from almost 1am to no effect till now,” he said.
I-Day spoilsport
Heavy rains have played spoil sport even at the Independence Day parade at Parade Grounds leading to low turnout. BBMP had to lay a layer of dry m-sand at Manekshaw Parade Grounds before the I-Day function as the grounds had turned into a mess due to rains.
Early morning services like milk and newspapers were hit in most areas across the city due to heavy rains. City saw huge traffic snarls on major arterial roads like Double Road, Shantinagar and Hosur Road where there is water inundation. This led to a snowball effect leading to slow moving traffic across the core areas.
While rains have lashed the entire city, maximum damage due to rains seems to have occurred in East and South East Bengaluru, the same areas that were badly affected in the July 2016 floods. However, civic officials said that the situation in the city on Tuesday couldn’t be compared to July 2016, as no lakes have breached leading to floods. “There has been very heavy rainfall in one night leading to inundation taking time for the water to flow out of the streets,” a senior civic official said.
Record rains in a decade
The rains that lashed the city on Monday night, seemed to be the highest in recent times and in at least over a decade. As per Meteorological Centre, Bengaluru, the HAL station recorded a heavy rainfall of 14.4 cm and the City station 12.9 cm of rainfall in the last 24 hours.
“The city’s record is 16.6 cm in 1890. The next was in 2009 when the city received over 7.7 cm. Tuesday’s rains have surpassed the 2009 record,” said S.M. Metri, Director, Meteorological Centre, Bengaluru.
The rains were also unexpected. Neither IMD nor Karnataka State Natural Disaster Management Centre (KSNDMC) had predicted such rains on Monday. In fact KSNDMC had predicted very light rainfall for the city.
Mr. Metri said that the rains were due to a cyclonic trough formation over Tamil Nadu in Bay of Bengal that moved swiftly North to South Interior Karnataka on Tuesday night.
Srinivas Reddy, Director, KSNDMC, said that even at 10:30 pm on Tuesday night the trough was still far away from the state and it moved very swiftly North at around midnight bringing heavy rains to South Interior Karnataka — Bengaluru Urban, Bengaluru Rural, Ramangar, Mandya, Mysuru and Chamarajnagar.
While IMD has only three rain gauges in the city, KSNDMC has over forty. KSNMDC said that the highest rainfall recorded in the city was much higher than 14 cms. Bilekahalli in HSR Layout, South East part of the city recorded a whopping 184 mm rainfall. However, North Bengaluru received scant rains. For instance, Yelahanka received only 8mm rainfall during the same duration.
