Karnataka: Rains batter coast; artificial flooding inundates many areas

MANGALURU/ UDUPI: Though monsoon has been active since the past fortnight, the rains from Monday night that continued on Tuesday battered the coastal district.
There have been reports of several houses being damaged due to inundation, hill slide, and artificial flooding. About five flights were also delayed/ diverted due to the rain. There were power outages in some parts of the city and district .
Anticipating heavy rains, both Dakshina Kannada and Udupi district administrations declared holiday for anganwadis, schools and colleges in the district on Tuesday. Udupi has extended the holiday to Wednesday also. KSNMDC has issued Red alert for Wednesday and orange alert for the next three days
According to KSNMDC, two places in Dakshina Kannada (DK) received heavy rainfall. While Talapady in Mangaluru Taluk received 238 mm of rainfall, Naringana in Bantwal Taluk received 231mm of rainfall.
All taluks of DK district received excess rainfall by 50% to 70% than the average rainfall recorded for the day. Dakshina Kannada district received an average rainfall of 64mm, Udupi received 82mm and Uttara Kannada district received 52mm of rainfall in the last 24 hours.
Tuesday’s rains saw many areas getting inundated in artificial flooding, especially Kallapu area on the Mumbai-Kochi National Highway. Mangaluru MLA U T Khader, who visited the spot, said the NHAI, while expanding the road, had not provided proper drainage facility for rainwater to move to the other side causing the inundation. He requested the district administration to sort out the issue.
Inside the city the houses of Claudia Lobo and Jerald Lobo at Bajjodi, were extensively damaged after a small bund, constructed to prevent rainwater entering their premises, collapsed inundating their houses. The residents of the two houses could barely save some essentials as the incident happened at 4am.
There were also reports of hillock slide blocking roads at Vittla, the border area of the district, cutting off road connectivity to Kerala.
In Mangaluru taluk, heavy traffic has been restricted on NH 169 connecting Mangaluru with Moodbidri after the water saturation caused cracks on one side of the road at Vanabojana near Gurupur, about 12 kms from here. NH officials have rushed to the spot and are inspecting the site to assess the damage, and also consider whether the road is traffic worthy for buses and other large vehicles. As of now, heavy traffic is being diverted via available routes. A tree fall on the Lalbagh- Ladyhill road affected traffic for quite some time till it was removed by the fire department.
Even in Udupi district, the heavy rains caused inundation almost in all low lying and also nearby areas. According to IMD, 12 stations in the Coast received very heavy and another 10 received heavy rains on Tuesday by 3pm.
Flights delayed/ diverted: Two flights were diverted and another three were delayed due to low visibility at the Mangaluru International Airport.
The Dubai Mangaluru Air India Express flight scheduled to arrive at 4.40am was diverted to Bengaluru. It later arrived at 9am. The Dammam to Mangaluru AIE flight scheduled to land at 5am, was diverted to Bengaluru. It later arrived at 3 pm.
The Bahrain, Kannur, Mangaluru AIE flight scheduled to arrive at 7 pm will arrive at 11pm and the Mangaluru Dubai AIE flight, scheduled to depart at 6.45am was delayed. It departed at 4.20 pm.
The Kannur flight to Dubai via Mangaluru’s expected time of arrival is 10.50pm, as against scheduled time of arrival 7.10pm, was rescheduled to depart as IX 813 to Dubai at 11.40pm, as against standard departure time 7.55pm.