Heavy rains affects normal life in Bangalore

by Aakash Polali - Bangalore
Daijiworld Media Network

Bangalore, Sep 14 : Bangaloreans have been having harrowing time since Wednesday as heavy rains have been lashing the city, causing massive traffic jams and dampening the Ganesha festival mood.

The IT hub received 153 mm of rainfall from Wednesday evening to 8.30 a.m. Friday, the met department said.

On Friday, it continued to rain intermittently throughout the day and heavy showers were predicted late in the evening.

Hundreds of people were stuck for up to three hours in traffic snarls at various points in the city Thursday evening. The worst affected areas were city and intra-state and inter-state bust stand, Electronic City housing major IT firms, Mysore Road and Tumkur Road.

The traffic problems were compounded by additional buses the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) as well as its counterparts in neighbouring Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh plied to meet the festival rush that coincided with the weekend, the Bangalore traffic police said.

The KSRTC put on roads 400 more buses Thursday and that many buses were on duty on Friday too in view of the festival rush, a corporation spokesperson told IANS.

The KSRTC runs 3,000 buses daily to destinations within Karnataka as well as to places in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.

The met department said the rains during the last three days 'are heavy but not a record fall as in previous years the city had received much more rains in September'.

The 79 mm rain Wednesday evening claimed two lives in a house collapse. Nearly 30 houses were damaged, civic officials said.