A day that began bright and sunny turned into a gloomy evening with heavy rains, bringing several parts of the city to a near standstill. Civic agencies on Sunday evening were inundated with complaints of flooded roads and slow-moving traffic.
Flooding was reported on many key roads and junctions, including Rajarajeshwarinagar Arch, Coffee Board junction, Vittal Mallya Road, near Town Hall, Minerva Circle, Leprosy Hospital on Magadi Road, and under the railway bridge near Khoday’s Circle.
At Shivajinagar Chowk area, pedestrians were seen wading through knee-deep water. Ongoing roadworks added to the chaos. “Several roads and drains in the city have been dug up. This is one of the reasons for the flooding in these areas,” sources in the BBMP said.
Personnel at the BBMP’s control rooms said apart from complaints about flooding in a few places, no other complaints had been received. However, according to the personnel in the Department of Fire and Emergency Services, rainwater had entered a few houses at Srinivasapura. “We have forwarded the complaint to the jurisdictional BBMP control room,” they said.
An autorickshaw stuck in rainwater at Shivajinagar.
Following a burst in a pipeline, water reportedly flooded a house in Sanjeevappa Line, adjacent to Cubbonpet Main Road, while a wall of a house in Gowtham Colony in Domlur ward collapsed following the heavy rain. According to the former councillor C.R . Lakshminarayan, rainwater had flooded over 10 houses in the slum. He added that no one was injured in the wall collapse.
As per the alerts by Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre, highest rainfall of 100.5 mm was recorded at Hemmigepura, 77.5 mm at H. Gollahalli, 75.5 mm in Jnana Bharathi ward, 67 mm at Hampinagar, and 66.5 mm in Kengeri.
C.S. Patil, Director, IMD Bengaluru, told The Hindu that the city was likely to receive light to moderate rainfall over the next five days. The rain is being attributed to the low pressure over Jharkhand and adjoining areas, apart from the off-shore trough running from Karnataka coast to Kerala coast. “Rainfall in the State will reduce in intensity and distribution, albeit temporarily, from July 25. A low pressure area is developing over the Bay of Bengal and more rain may be expected after July 28,” he added.
