Daijiworld Media Network - Mangalore (SP)

Mangalore, Oct 2:  The twin-districts of Udupi and Dakshina Kannada received torrential rains on Thursday October 1 too, giving the citizens, an experience of being in the midst of the monsoon season. While the farmers are afraid that their crops might rot if the rains continue unabated, the fishermen had to retract halfway through their fishing activities, because of the fear that the climate might worsen.

All the five taluks of Dakshina Kannada district got heavy rains. The city too got rains for most part of the day, even though it happened to drizzle during most of the day except in the afternoon, when heavy rain lashed the city. Cloudy weather was experienced all over the coast. A cattle shed located in Mala village in Karkala taluk crashed to the ground, inflicting a loss of about Rs 50,000 on the owner. All the taluks of Udupi district got heavy rains.

Several parts of Bijajpur district received between 11 to 15 cms of rain on Thursday, with Bagalkot and Koppal districts apart from Uttara Kannada district averaging about nine cms of rain each.

There are reports that about 40 people died and hundreds of cattle lost their lives in incidents of house collapse, crashing of boulders on the houses, floods etc., in north Karnataka districts like Bijapur, Bagalkot, Bellary, Gulbarga, Raichur and Koppal. Thousands of acres of standing crops also got destroyed due to the heavy rains. As water entered the famous pilgrimage centre, Sri Raghavendra Swami Mutt in Mantralaya, devotees were asked to leave to other places.

The highways between Raichur and Mantralaya, Hubli and Hospet and Hubli and Solapur were closed for vehicular traffic, as these roads were inundated under a few feet of standing water. Rescue operations are going on a brisk pace. In the meantime, one of the boats pressed into service in Siraguppa taluk of Bellary district on which 11 government employees including a circle police inspector named Dinkar Shetty and revenue officials were involved with the rescue operation, for the  protection of people and cattle from villages, went missing. Even though the boat was later found floating on Tungabhadra River near Kudadarahal village in Siraguppa taluk later, the officials who had left by this boat are yet to be found.