In December 2017, a 27-year-old private firm employee Balasundar was killed in an accident when he tried to negotiate a pothole on Sanganoor Road. As he slowed down the vehicle, a four-wheeler hit his two-wheeler from the rear and he died on the spot.
Soon after the accident, the Coimbatore Corporation hurriedly closed the pothole, though the residents of the area had been urging it to repair the damaged stretch for over three months.
As part of the work, the Corporation repaired other damaged stretches on the road, which then was used by government and private buses as the Gandhipuram flyover work was under way.
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Within four months and after a few spells of rain, the repaired portion of the Sanganoor Road, near the Corporation school and a narrow turn, has turned a pothole.
Road users said the pothole on the southern side of the road were forced them to move northwards while taking the turn and this in turn affected the forward movement of vehicles taking the turn from north to east.
With very little negotiating space available at the turning, it had turned an accident prone spot.
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There were many such stretches on the city and their number has increased after the recent rains.
Road users moving from east to west towards Kikani school on Shastri Road face a similar problem near the underpass as drivers proceeding in the opposite direction swerve right to avoid riding over the pothole.
As their veering towards the right was not visible to those exiting the underpass, it could lead to accidents, road users said.
Though there were many such damaged stretches on the city streets, their potential to endanger road users' safety had increased after the recent rains.
N. Karthik, MLA, said there were several roads that were very bad in his constituency and he had raised the issue with the Corporation authorities but relief was hard to come by.
He said that the Corporation had failed to repair and relay even those roads where the underground drainage work was completed several months ago.
Corporation officials said the civic body had identified 102 road repair works to be taken up at nearly ₹ 6 crore. Of those, it had completed 38 works for ₹ 2.35 crore and would complete the rest in the coming weeks.
Sources said that the list of damaged roads did not include those roads that were damaged in the recent rains as the list was prepared at least a couple of months ago.
Asked about the damage to repaired stretches of roads, the officials said the Corporation would repair those as well.
More rain predicted
The city will experience more rain the next couple of days, the Agro Climate Research Centre at the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University has said. The prediction for the next few days was that Coimbatore would see good rains, as a continuation of the rains it had received in May thus far.
As against the long-term average (30 years) of 66.5 mm rain in May for Coimbatore, the city had thus far recorded 86 mm. This was in four rain days. A rain day is one with over 2.5 mm rainfall.
April 2018 was not bad for the city as it had recorded 45 mm rainfall as against long-term average of 52.7 mm. March was good as the rainfall was 18 mm as against the long-term average of 17 mm.
The good summer rain (March, April and May) coupled with cloud cover had pushed down mercury. The day temperature in the past few days had been around 33.5 degree C as against the normal 36 degree C. The nights too had been cooler with the temperature remaining just under 24 degree C. It should been 26 degree C at this point in time in May, the sources added.