The thunderstorm hit Bangalore on the last day of April with the sudden downpour catching many unprepared including BBMP. As the sky poured heavy rains, many areas in the city were affected by water logging due to lack of proper stormwater drain and de-siltation of side drains.
Roads Turn Into Streams In Short Time
Lack of proper outlets on the side of the roads, caused them to turn into streams within half an hour of the downpour. The heavy rains were accompanied by lightning and thunder. Naturally, it affected the already unmanageable traffic of the IT City of India leading to more traffic congestion situations.
Other than that, cricket fans were also unhappy because the IPL match had to be stopped and later on called off due to bad weather conditions. Although BBMP control room people did acknowledge that there were incidences of tree fall from Infantry Road, Maruti Circle and Adugodi, they maintained that there were no complaints regarding waterlogging from any part of the city.
The rainfall data provided by the Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Center says that Pulikeshinagar, Bangalore North registered rainfall of 120mm rain/hour. V.V. Puram and Bommanahalli recorded rainfall of 74mm rain/hour and 70mm rain/hour respectively.
City Mayor Asks Engineers To Be On High Alert
According to reports, the Mayor of the city, Gangambike Mallikarjun has asked the executive engineers to remain on high alerts and attend the complaints related to rain immediately. Gangambike has also asked the engineers to lookout for flooded areas and take appropriate measures for preventing flooding.
While talking about the monsoon predictions for Karnataka the Mayor said, “The Indian Meteorological Department has predicted normal or below normal monsoon this year. Even private weather forecaster Skymet has predicted that monsoon will not be so good this year.”
Karnataka Is Under High-Risk Category
The heavy rains may not be causing much of problem to Karnataka as Skymet has marked the state under the category of “high risk.” The state faced severe drought during the last monsoon season. Gangambike said, “It is not a good sign, as Karnataka is already among other states that were declared drought-prone last year. Going by the prediction, Karnataka falling under the high-risk category is not good.”
The IMD has already come out with its first long-range forecast in the last month. More insight will be provided after IMD will release its second forecast during the end of May or first week of June.
