Karnataka - Mangalore   

Rain exposes official apathy

DISASTER strikes: A house that was damaged after the retaining wall of the neighbouring house collapsed

MANGALORE: The heavy rains that lashed the coastal region on Friday once again exposed lack of planning in the city and its outskirts in the last few years.

A predictable scene, involving either reckless construction or official apathy, emerged at each of the badly affected places that The Hindu visited on Friday. The retaining walls at Bondel and Pacchanady and a house at Kannagudde collapsed because they were built after vertically slicing the hillocks.

The Kodial Gutthu colony which came under nearly five-feet of water at some places used to be a low-lying paddy field until a few years ago.

“The entire area was turned into a residential layout without sufficient land filling,” said Mangalore City (South) MLA Yogish Bhat. In Boloor, a 10-foot high compound wall of an upmarket bungalow had to be demolished to allow water to flow downstream. The wall was blocking a natural drainage resulting in water-logging in several houses in the neighbourhood.

At Kudroli, the earth moving machinery could not enter a narrow lane and unclog a storm-water drain because the residents had encroached upon the approach road. The heavy flooding at Kuloor and Kannur were blamed on drains that had been narrowed by the NHAI to build service roads. The ongoing construction works were blocking water flow.

Areas such as Kodical, Kottara Chowki, Bhagwati Nagar, Bunder, Kattepuni, Baikampady and Attavara came under three-foot deep water because of rampant encroachments of drains and natural waterways, said Mangalore City Corporation Commissioner K.N. Vijayprakash. “It is not that encroachments have happened only in these areas. It has happened in drainage networks all over the city and some low-lying areas are bearing the brunt,” he said.

At an emergency review meeting that was convened at the Deputy Commissioner's office on Friday, it emerged that another major reason for the flooding in the city was the large quantities of silt that had accumulated at the mouths of the Netravati and the Gurpur rivers.

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