Rain sets a record but also exposes old failings

Tuesday’s downpour highest single-day rainfall in over a decade

March 08, 2017 10:37 pm | Updated 10:38 pm IST - Bengaluru

Stagnant rain water made traffic movement difficult on the Outer Ring Road in Bengaluru on Wednesday.

Stagnant rain water made traffic movement difficult on the Outer Ring Road in Bengaluru on Wednesday.

The downpour in the city late on Tuesday was the highest single-day rainfall for March in over a decade.

According to the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), the city saw 36.8 mm of rainfall — between 8 p.m. and midnight on Tuesday.

Not only is it nearly double the rainfall “normally” received for the whole of March, the figure is also the highest for a single day at least since 2007. The record is on March 28, 1981, when 61 mm of rainfall was recorded here.

The past three days has seen the city receive more than 45 mm of rainfall, a significant increase from the 18 mm of ‘normal’ rainfall seen in March.

While the IMD averages out rainfall in the city, the figures from Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre (KSNMDC), which has 82 rain gauges in the city, shows that the rainfall was the most intense in Central Bengaluru.

The highest rainfall was measured in Rajmahal Guttahalli at 65mm, while Pulikeshnagar, Shivajinagar, Hoysalanagar all recorded more than 50mm of rainfall.

Several areas went without power through the evening.

The Bangalore Electricity Supply Company’s (Bescom) helpline received as many as 5,900 calls with 3,856 complaints, of which 3,600 were resolved. As many as 7,500 calls were abandoned.

The downpour in recent days caught the city unprepared. A traffic jam for kilometres, an underpass inundated with water, and water logging at “world class roads”.

The morning peak hour commute worsened for those travelling to Marathahalli after the Selam Railway Under Bridge on Outer Ring Road resembled a lagoon on Wednesday morning. Emergency Services officials were called in to pump out the stagnating water.

While this took nearly an hour, the resulting pile-up saw traffic stalled on the busy road.

“People took up to four hours to reach office; some turned back and returned home. Traffic had piled up for almost 1km as the traffic was moving in a single lane,” said Pravir Bagrodia from the citizen’s group Whitefield Rising.

The chaos was seen multi-fold in June 2016 when heavy rains had paralysed any vehicular movement on the busy stretch.

The traffic police wrote to the BBMP to look into the water-logging here, but, as Wednesday showed, there was no improvement.

“There are no drains on the left side of the road, while the underpass does not have service lanes. We had asked BBMP to clean the drains around, but there are other design problems that need to be fixed,” said R. Hitendra, Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic).

BBMP Commissioner N. Manjunath Prasad blamed it on unseasonal high rains. “These are old drains and not capable of withstanding the sudden downpour...on some drains, dumping of garbage has happened, and desilting works will be undertaken,” he said.

Talking to reporters, City Development Minister K.J. George blamed unscientific traffic and pedestrian underpasses (constructed by the previous government) on the inundation. “If the steel bridge project had been approved, these could have been dealt with, now we will have to look for an alternative,” he said.

‘Permanent solution’

On Wednesday, Ministers and officials inspected Kino Theatre underpass near Anand Rao Circle and offered a “permanent”solution.

BBMP Commissioner N. Manjunath Prasad said pipes will be laid underneath the road and water would be pumped out to a drain near Sampige Road Metro Station nearly 850m away.

“As we can do work only in the night when there is no traffic, it will take up to 2 months to be completed,” he said. The project will cost the BBMP ₹3 crore.

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