Mangaluru: Heavy rain disrupts normal life; red alert sounded for Karnataka Coast

MANGALURU: The Karnataka coast on Tuesday received erratic, but heavy rainfall, with gusty winds throwing normal life out of gear with widespread power outages due to tree fall and minor landslides in many areas of the coast. Meanwhile, Indian Meteorological Department has sounded a red alert for Uttara Kannada, Udupi and Dakshina Kannada districts 8:30am of August 5.
In the Coast, Uttara Kannada received the highest amount of rainfall at 91mm, followed by Udupi at 75 and DK at 73mm. The highest Rainfall of 241 mm was recorded at Castlerock, Supa Taluk in Uttara Kannada District.
In the last 24 hours till Tuesday 8.30am, DK District received an average of 73 mm of rainfall, with Sullia and Belthangady taluks receiving the highest rainfall at 95mm and 93mm respectively. Puttur, Mangaluru and Bantwal taluks received 73mm, 40mm and 64mm of rainfall respectively.
The rainfall Uttara Kannada District received in the last 24 hours was 216% more than the average rainfall that the district recorded for the day. Similarly, Udupi district received 94% excess amount of rainfall and for DK, it was 83% excess than the average recorded for the day.
KSNMDC bulletin stated that widespread moderate to heavy rains associated with strong surface winds at times and isolated very heavy to extreme heavy rains was likely over Udupi, Dakshina Kannada and Uttara Kannada districts It also stated that wind speeds ranging between 50kmph to 60 kmph was forecast along the coast of Karnataka from Mangaluru to Karwar, warning fishermen not to venture into the sea.
Mescom bore the brunt of the rains in Udupi and Dakshina Kannada District and at the last count as many as 148 electric poles, 23 transformers and 65 kilometer conductor wires were damaged due to poles being damaged in tree fall and landslides.
In Mangaluru city there were several tree falls disrupting power supply in key areas of the city. Four electricity poles were damaged after a tree fell on Boloor Jarandaya road due to rain and heavy winds. In Neermarga too, there were a couple of tree falls in the morning cutting off power supply, which was not restored till this report was sent.
Traffic was affected on Charmadi Ghat on the Mangaluru-Chikkamagaluru route due to a tree fall on the second hair pin bend. On Monday, landslides near Kottigehara, Chikkamagaluru District, left traffic badly affected. Though normalcy has been restored on the route after blocking the road for restoration till 7am on Tuesday, locals fear more landslides due to continuous downpour.