A 23-year-old woman was electrocuted to death in rain-battered Bengaluru as the inundated metropolis struggled to get back on its feet on Tuesday after a deluge and poor urban planning prompted authorities to deploy boats, earthmovers and tractors to help people wading through waist-high sheets of water and slush.
The government ordered schools to remain closed and directed companies to ask employees to work from home as rainfall began late on Tuesday, hampering efforts to pump out water from low-lying areas and flooded apartment blocks and slum colonies.
The woman, Akhila, was killed late at night on Monday when she accidentally touched an electric pole after her scooter developed a snag due to the flooding in the Siddapura area, police said.
тАЬWe called her last night and she had told me that she will come home, once the rain stops… no child should face what my child faced. Our life was dependent on her,тАЭ said her father, Somasekhar.
Four other people were killed across the state due to the torrential rainfall. This included constables Mahesh Vakkarad and Ningappa Halavagalii, who were attached to Mundaragi police station in Gadag district. They were deployed at at Gajendragad on Monday. According to police, they were washed away at a stream in Koppal district.
In another incident, 46-year-old Nagamma was washed away while returning from agriculture fields on Monday evening in Hallikeri village in Gadag district. Her body was traced on Tuesday.
A 32-year-old person died after a house collapse in Shishuvinahala village in Haveri district on Tuesday. An eyewitness said he slept in the living room of his house, but the house wall collapsed on him after heavy rains.
Bengaluru recorded about 131.6mm rainfall in a 24-hour-period ending Monday тАФ the second-highest single-day rainfall in September in 24 years.
On Tuesday, the Outer Ring Road and Sarjapura road area тАУ which house most of IndiaтАЩs IT powerhouses тАУ resembled brown lakes, causing massive traffic snarls. Tractors roared through waterlogged roads, ferrying people to destinations.
Visuals showed people plodding through waterlogged streets to get to higher ground as thatched huts and swanky apartments alike were flooded.
тАЬFamily and my pet Albus have been evacuated on a tractor from our society thatтАЩs now submerged. Things are bad. Please take care. DM me if you need any help, IтАЩll try my best to help,тАЭ Gaurav Munjal, the chief executive officer of ed-tech startup Unacademy said.
The government blamed the unprecedented showers for the flooding.
тАЬKarnataka, especially Bengaluru, has received unprecedented heavy rain…for the last 90 years such rain has not been recorded. All the tanks are full and are overflowing, some of them have breached, and there have been continuous rains, every day it is raining,тАЭ chief minister Basavaraj Bommai said.
He said that the entire city was not inundated and problems existed in two zones, which were in low-lying areas, and blamed the тАЬmaladministrationтАЭ of the previous Congress governments.
The Congress hit back, accusing the ruling BJP of politicising the issue. тАЬWe are interested in Bengaluru keeping its image and glory. Instead of blaming us, they (BJP) have been in power for the last three to three-and-a-half years… they could have delivered. In case there were any mistakes by us, they could have rectified it,тАЭ Congress state unit chief DK Shivakumar said.
