Road connectivity between Mangaluru and Mysuru via Madikeri is unlikely to be restored soon as the Mysuru-Mani-Mangaluru NH 275 has been damaged in at least six places between Jodupala Junction and Madikeri, according to the police.
Jodupala, between Mangaluru and Madikeri, on the Sampaje Ghat is about 15 km away from Madikeri town and about 125 km away from Mangaluru.
The connectivity on this 15-km stretch has now completely been cut off owing to landslips and the highway has been damaged starting from Jodupala Junction.
If one has to reach Madikeri, it would be through a walk from Jodupala Junction by taking the risk of crossing the brimming streams and debris spread on the highway, the police and the local people told The Hindu on Sunday.
According to them, it might take at least six months to restore normalcy on the stretch.
The strength of the highway on the stretch will have to be assessed properly before taking up restoration works and allowing heavy traffic, they said.
“A mini stream in Jodupala Junction has now turned into a river. We never imagined this,” Rahim B., a local resident, said.
One can see huge boulders washed into the highway from somewhere atop the hills.
As the highway has been cut off, the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) has built a make-shift footbridge to cross over the “stream-turned-river” at Jodupala Junction. The edges of the highway in the ghat has washed away in many places forming trenches.
As police and NDRF men continued to explain the risks to The Hindu , a group of rescue workers carried an injured labourer, said to be from Assam, on a stretcher to an ambulance parked at Jodupala Abbikolli, about 1-km away down from the junction. “We found him lying in a house inside a coffee estate,” a rescue worker told Shailendra Umrao, Inspector, 10th Batallion, NDRF.
The labourer was immediately taken to KVG Medical College Hospital in Sullia, about 37 km away from Jodupala Junction.
