Incessant drizzle, heavy showers bring life to a halt

Mangaluru: Incessant drizzle coupled by intermittent heavy showers, put normal life out of gear in the city and the district.
There were a few incidents of rain damage, but no loss of life was reported. Two houses belonging to Abdul and Razak were damaged due to landslip at Madaka Gudde, Amblamogaru on the outskirts of the city. The landslip also brought down a couple of electric poles. A huge banyan tree near Kankanady Circle was uprooted causing traffic gridlock in the area for a few hours. The fire department personnel were at the site supervising operations to cut the tree and make traffic flow smooth. The tree fall also resulted in damaging a vehicle as the tree brought down a transformer on a parked vehicle. The owner had parked the vehicle and had gone out, hence nobody was injured.
A house located in Mascarenhas Garden on Falnir Road near K2 Apartments and Falnir Towers was in knee-deep water as the incessant rain prevented outflow of water through the drains.
Traffic jams
There were traffic jams across the city due to a landslip at Circuit House. The movement of vehicles was blocked for for 45 minutes in the morning, and traffic moved at snail’s pace across the city. Major areas of national highway — KPT Junction, Nanthoor and Mahaveer Circle — too were affected.
Mecom officials said several electric poles and a couple of transformers were damaged in the city. Five poles were damaged in Kuthar area due to strong winds. Officials, however, said they still don’t have a count of damaged electric poles as they were busy with clearing operations and restoring power supply to affected areas.
As on Monday, the district received 67mm rainfall with Mangaluru and Puttur taluks receiving the highest at 76mm and 75mm, respectively. Sullia received the least at 51mm. Rest of the taluks – Belthangady and Bantwal, received 65mm and 66mm of rainfall, respectively in the last 24 hours from Sunday 8.30am.
Last year, the district had received 334mm rainfall on the same day, with the month’s rainfall average being 1,217mm. As far as the seven-month rainfall statistics is concerned, the district received 1,187mm of rainfall, 1,595mm less than what the district received last year till July 22.