Modern city? We’re still at rain God’s mercy

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While the city “develops,” acquiring a Metro Rail and other infrastructure, it continues to remain at the mercy of the rain Gods.

Thursday's downpour once again saw trees being uprooted and houses and basements in low lying areas flooded while the BBMP threw up its hands helplessly.

The heaps of garbage filling the streets while the civic agency finds a solution to the landfill problem, made the situation worse than usual this year as commuters had to negotiate the piles of rubbish floating in the rain water while stuck in traffic held up by trees fallen across roads. Garbage also filled the drains , which overflowed, flooding homes and basements.

Water logging in areas like Jeevan Bheema Nagar, Indiranangar, Basweshwarnagar, Mahalakshmi Layout, Malleswaram, Basavangudi, and Banashankari added to the chaos on the roads even as people of Hulimavu, Ejjipura, Tippasandra, JC Nagar, and Pai layout spent hours trying to drain out the water from their homes.

“Not only did we have to cope with water gushing into our homes, but also a power cut which made the situation much worse,” complained Mr. Suresh Shetty of G.M Palya in Tippasandra.

“We had nearly four feet high rain water in our house. I kept trying the BBMP control room to ask for help but couldnt reach it,” grumbled Mr Malikarjun of Hulimavu.

Several other residents too complained that the BBMP helplines were of little use to them while they spent the night pumping out the water from their homes themselves.

BBMP commissioner, M.K Shankarlinge Gowda, when contacted, said there was nothing the civic agency could do about flooding of houses in low lying areas.

"But we have established emergency and relief teams in every zone to help pump out the water,” he added

Dry spell over, city gets heavy rains

The 58.9 mm rain that the city received Thursday night made up for the poor rainfall of the last few weeks and weathermen predict it will receive its remaining share of rain for the month in days to come.

South interior Karnataka, in fact, received 1,382 per cent excess rainfall in a single day as the city’s temperature shot up to an all time high for this time of the year in the last 110 years on Thursday.

Director of the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), Bengaluru, B Puttanna says the rise in temperature was a big reason why the city received the moderate to heavy rainfall that it did.

“The last time the temperature rose to 33 degrees this time of the year was on August 6, 1899. On Thursday the temperature rose to 32.4 degrees and this led to formation of clouds and rain.

Although the city Met observatory recorded about 6 cm of rain, the HAL airport recorded over 10 cm,” Mr Puttanna said, pointing out that the city usually received 141.6 mm rain in August, and had so far received 106 mm.