Daijiworld Media Network - Puttur (SP)

Puttur, Nov 3: Fearful whirlwind which swept the area in a radius of about 8 kilometers covering Manibhanda and Anila in Siribagilu village on the evening of Tuesday November 2 caused thousands of trees in the reserve forest to get uprooted. Houses, shops, areca nut plantations and other property worth crores of rupees were either destroyed or damaged due to this whirlwind.

Although the whirlwind was experienced for a period merely five minutes, the destruction it caused was enormous. Fallen trees damaged several buildings. Power connection to the region got disrupted as electric poles fell to the ground. Agricultural crops were destroyed, and areca nut, coconut, and banana trees were destroyed.

As innumerable trees fell and got lined up across Gundia-Subrahmanya road from Manibhanda to Anila for a stretch of two kilometers, traffic on the road was blocked. Some tourist vehicles were damaged. Locals worked with staff of forest department to clear the road and succeeded in making the roads usable to some extent by 3 am on Wednesday. Vehicles were therefore forced to take Kadaba-Ichalampady route to and from Subrahmanya. Locals feel that it will take at least a week to make the road fully functional.

Subrahmanya range forest officer, Manjunath N, said that fallen trees were visible for as far as one could see in the forest from the road, in a stretch of 400 to 500 acres. As the area where this destruction took place is not covered by mobile network, people living elsewhere did not come to know about this destruction for several hours. The locals therefore urged the officials and people's representatives who visited the area to set up mobile tower at Anila village.

Taluk tahsildar, Anant Shankar, assistant superintendent of police, Rishvanth, revenue inspector, Manjunath, village accountant, Herald Monis, range forest officer, Manjunath N, Mescom assistant executive engineer, Suresh Kumar, Uppinangady police sub inspector, Rathan Kumar, Subrahmanya sub-inspector, Gopal M and many others visited the spot.

President of taluk Agricultural Produce Market Committee, Krishna Shetty, has urged the government to treat this incident as a special case and pay compensation at the rate of Rs 1 lac per acre of crops destroyed.

President of Kombaru gram panchayat, Ajit S, said that a special meeting of the panchayat has been convened on November 3 to discuss the matter.