Bengaluru: Due to record-breaking rainfall, all schools in the Tech City were closed and many companies had to allow work from home on Wednesday. The rainfall broke the record of 30 years as the city experienced the heaviest rainfall since then. India Meteorological Department (IMD) there is no relief from rainfall for Bengaluru in the upcoming days. The city may experience light to moderate rainfall from October 23 to October 23, as per IMD.
Bengaluru has been experiencing heavy rainfall from past few days. On Monday, the weather station recorded 186 mm or 7.3 inches of rain which is highest single day rainfall recorded after 1997. The heavy rainfall caused inconvenience in most part of the city, affecting 1.4 crore residents. As per IMD, in October this year Bengaluru recorded 211.7 mm of rain which is twice the average rainfall for October.
Under-construction wall collapse causes casualties
In a tragic incident, due to the continuous rainfall, falling of an under-constructed building took life of five workers while five other have been injured. The incident took place at Bengaluru’s Babusapalya. On Tuesday night, Deputy Chief Minister, DK Shivakumar visited the site.
In a report published by the Reuters, many residents shared their agony due to the lack of proper measurements for dealing with rains. Sadhna Subramanian, 40, who resides in Banaswadi said that the water is entering her kitchen through chimney. She is apprehensive of possible power supply cut during these storms. An employee at Wipro, Saurabh Kumar, said that the area starts flooding even if it rains for half an hour. “During heavy rains, the residents of his apartments are dependent on tractors for transportation,” he added. Many residents expressed their hopelessness and frustration over the failure of city’s infrastructure, as they are compelled to commute in such conditions.
‘Unplanned development to be blamed’
Sandeep Anirudhan, founder of the Coalition for Water Security, attributes the unplanned development of the city for the ongoing problems. He said that the environment, drainage system and the wetlands being destroyed in the name of development is all unplanned development.
According to a study by the Indian Institute of Science, over the past four decade the city has lost its 88 per cent of the green cover. The concrete areas have increased eleven times. Due to this the city’s capacity to absorb water has reduced significantly. This has made 85 per cent of the area of Bengaluru vulnerable to flooding.
