“We have never witnessed such a situation before,” said a distraught Shashikala, who owns a house built under a government-funded housing scheme at Ramanathapura in Hassan district. She has been asked to pack up essential items and move to a safe spot or to one of the relief centres in the village.
The residents of Subramanya Nagar in Ramanathapura village, on the banks of the Cauvery, spent a sleepless night on Wednesday. With the water level in the river rising, they were worried about moving their children and essential items to a safe place. By Thursday morning, 18 houses were flooded, two collapsed completely, and families residing in 35 more were asked to move out.
A majority of the houses affected are those constructed under the Ashraya scheme of the government. As the river water entered the premises of Rameshwara Temple on Wednesday afternoon, the residents living a few feet away anticipated the danger and began moving items to dry spots. Around 200 are now settled in a community hall. A few more families have been shifted to a nearby government junior college.
Jayamma and her family members were seen shifting clothes, beds, and other things from their house to a relative’s place.
“When we built houses here, we did not expect this to happen. Now we have to go in search of a better place,” she said. An autorickshaw with a loudspeaker did the rounds of the village asking people to shift to safe places.