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It was an every other day for Sasikala, a 35-year-oid housekeeping staff employed at a private company in Whitefield. She had started her work sweeping the firm’s premises a little earlier on Monday morning as the heavy rains had brought in a lot of garbage into a compound.
She was sweeping closer to the compound wall when all of a sudden the wall collapsed on her killing her on the spot. It took some time for the Fire & Emergency personnel to retrieve the victim from underneath the debris as it was too much of dirt and debris.
After retrieving the victim, she was shifted to a nearby hospital where she was declared brought dead. Sasikala has two children and the Mahadevapura police have taken up a case of unnatural death and are investigating further.
‘Not Greater Bengaluru, It’s Water Bengaluru’ – Locals
It was a sleepless night for residents of the Sai Layout and the adjacent Vadderapalya in Horamavu, at the eastern suburbs of Bengaluru city – on the intervening night of Sunday and Monday as the torrential rains for about three hours brought the neighbourhood to its knees with groundfloor houses inundated with at least four to five feet of water and the top-floors residents stranded at their houses nowhere to go.
The locality – a home to at least 50,000 people, a majority of the populace – techies working at the nearby tech parks at Mahadevapura, Hennur, Banaswadi and Hormavu say that this is an ongoing waterlogging problem every monsoon season and despite the local leaders and ministers promise solutions, the situation is the same every year especially the monsoon season.
However, this time, the residents are shocked and a worried lot as it was just pre-monsoon showers that lasted for about 3 hours that caused havoc with dirty sewage water entering their houses destroying their furniture and household appliances.
“The power was shutdown by the authorities and residents had to wait for the Fire and Emergency Services personnel to arrive with boats and bring them out of their house to safety during the entire night and neighbours helped the security personnel to shift people to under-constructed houses nearby where they were temporarily housed until morning,” said Babu a resident.
Tractors, earthmovers and boats were used by the personnel of Fire and Emergency Services, Civil Defence, and the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) – to rescue trapped elderly citizens including bed-ridden patients and pets from their inundated houses.
Residents complained of a blocked Rajakaluve (storm water drain) in the area as the cause of inundation of rain water.
“This has been happening over many decades now. The politicians come and promise solutions and they leave, but as the rainy seasons start, we know for sure that sewage water is definitely going to enter our houses,” said Akram, a local resident adding the real estate boom and encroachment into the Rajakaluve is also a reason for the water breaching it and entering our homes.”
The residents of the area are a harried lot thinking that if this is the case with a pre-monsoon shower that lasted for three hours, then imaging if there were to be rainfalls that last the entire night, then their houses would be drowned.
Residents of a neigbhourhood apartment – VM Meridian complained that the sewage water had entered their apartment premise and had gotten mixed with the sump water.
“Our lifts have stopped functioning after water entered into them. Our vehicles parked at the basements have gone underwater and the power isn’t there,” said Prasad a resident of VM Meridian apartment adding “We have children and elderly at our homes. We are paying our taxes and do we really deserve this just because we chose to buy our houses here.”
And as usual, the residents were left to watch the drama enfolding with local leaders and ministers making a beeline visiting all the water-logged and inundated areas in and around Bengaluru. It was the emergency personnel who were seen helping out residents using boats who were trapped inside their houses.
The civic authority (BBMP) deployed earthmovers and tractors to move people from inundated homes to safety. Later on, the BBMP officials visited the spot to monitor and supervise the evacuation processes – followed by local leaders and ministers who arrived at the last to take stock of the situation.
Indian Metrological Department (IMD) had forecasted that there would be torrential rains in and around Bengaluru starting Saturday-Sunday and would continue for the next four days, however, it was all for everyone to see that the city was not at all prepared to handle such copious amounts of rainfall – especially at low-lying areas such as these with residents complaining that the politicians are busy trying to make it Greater Bengaluru, but when it is actually Water Bengaluru.
