Roof of the house which was damaged during the explosion of a rock towards Upper Bhadra project work, at Sathkoli village in Narasimharajapura.
Credit: Special Arrangement
Narasimharajapura: Roof of houses were damaged as a boulder burst into pieces and fell on them during the construction of a water channel connecting a jack well as a part of the Upper Bhadra project near Sathokli village on Thursday.
A child sleeping in the cradle had a narrow escape when the debris fell inside the house through the broken roof.
The boulder exploded on Thursday evening and pieces of the rock scattered on four houses damaging their roofs.
A large piece had fallen on the house of a person called Krishnamurthy and fell next to the cradle in which the child was asleep. The walls of another house belonging to a person called Srinivas have developed cracks.
“No danger took place in the past even when the boulders exploded many times. However, the intensity of the explosion was high on Thursday. I was in the front yard of the house during the incident. If I was inside the house, the child and I would have sustained severe injuries”, Chaitra, mother of the child said.
In another house belonging to Radha, a woman called Bhavya had just returned to the house a few hours before the incident, with her new born. Fortunately, the room they were in, did not sustain any harm thus the mother and the child escaped the danger. However, the stones fell on the roof of the bathroom.
Tiles on the roof of the houses belonging to G Chinnayya and Prabhakar, have also been damaged.
Superintendent of Police Vikram Amte, Tarikere Assistant Commissioner Kantharaj and Tahsildar Tanuja T conducted a spot inspection and assured of compensation to the affected families, by the company which has been carrying out the work on contract.
MLA T D Rajegowda stated that directions will be given to the Superintendent of Police to file an FIR against the contractor who did not take any precautionary measures before conducting the explosion of the boulders.
Visiting the site, he spoke to the reporters and pointed out that those who avail the main contract of the project, hand the contract over to the sub-contractors, who further hand it over to mini contractors. This has resulted in an inordinate delay in the implementation of the project which started way back in 2008, the MLC pointed out.