Several parts in the central area of the city, such as Kodialbail, Kodialgutthu, Bharatinagar, and Central Market, were flooded on Saturday with up to two feet of water after heavy overnight rain.
On the outskirts, Surathkal, Hosabettu, Bailare, Alape and Kannur were under knee-deep water. An angry Deputy Commissioner blamed most of the urban flooding on violations of building and layout norms committed “wilfully” by developers, whom he described as being part of a mafia.
Dakshina Kannada recorded 110 mm of rainfall in 24 hours till 8 a.m. on Saturday, during which one house was fully damaged and eight were damaged partially. The estimated loss from damage to houses in the past 24 hours is Rs. 78,000, taking the total loss since June 1 to Rs. 11 lakh.
When The Hindu visited some of the affected areas, it was found that 20 houses in the Alape area had been flooded for the second time in 10 days. This is an area, which residents say, was never prone to flooding.
Residents and shopkeepers in the Alape-Kannur area — a one-km stretch after the Alape railway overpass on National Highway 48 towards Kannur — said that water overflowed from storm-water drains adjacent to the highway owing to heavy rainfall after midnight. The area was flooded on June 16, residents said.
Salma Sahib (23), whose house is close to the highway, said that she and her family woke up around 1.30 a.m. “We had to stand on chairs to keep dry. All the rice we had stored is wet. We have not had anything to eat since last night,” she said. Several of their possessions, including electronic devices, were damaged, she said. Nisha (6), one of her children, was sick after she swallowed some of the water in her sleep, Ms. Salma said. A couple, who live with their sons and daughter-in-law in a one-room house next to the storm-water drain, were also woken up the same way. A. Somappa (64) and his family were caught between the storm-water drain on one side and a flooded field on the other. They had only a narrow path connecting their house to the road. Girija, his wife, said, “We had 32 kg of rice in the house. We are rarely able to buy so much at a time, and now it is all wet. We also lost all the vessels we had.”
Goods in several shops have been damaged by the water. Gulabi and Krishna Pujary earn around Rs. 700 a day from their small shop on the highway. The water began to recede at around 6 a.m., after which local people began cleaning the slush.
Cause
Many residents of the area blamed the National Highways Authority of India and the district administration for not ensuring that the storm-water drains were replaced properly while widening the road. Jiten D'Souza, a shopkeeper, said, “Even though the Deputy Commissioner came here with other officials several times, they did not ensure that the problem with the storm-water drain was rectified.”
The residents said that when the highway was widened, the contractors diverted the existing storm-water drain and made it narrower by several feet. This had caused the water to overflow, they said. Further along the highway up to Kannur, the situation was similar in two more places where storm-water drains passed under the highway.
Official help
Councillor of ward number 51 (Alape Padil) Mohan Padil and councillor Sudhir Shetty (ward no. 52, Kannur) reached the spot soon after they received complaints from residents and stayed with the affected families. Mr. Padil said that he had arranged for workers to use compressors to cut through the layer of cement that had resulted in the narrowing of the storm-water drain near the Alape railway overpass.
