Strong wind, heavy rain lash Bengaluru for second consecutive day on Wednesday

Strong wind and heavy rain with thunder lashed the city for the second consecutive day on Wednesday uprooting several trees and bringing down several electric poles. The rains that lasted over an hour towards the evening brought down more than 50 trees and 75 tree branches. While the heavy rainfall lashed parts of Southern Bengaluru on Tuesday, it was Northern and Western parts of Bengaluru which witnessed heavy rainfall on Wednesday.

Evidently, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) control room received more than 25 complaints of tree and tree branch fall from Malleshwaram alone. Sources in Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Cell (KSNDMC) revealed that until 10:00 pm, Malleshwaram and adjoining areas received about 20-21 mm rainfall.

“The busy stretches like Sankey Road, Sampige Road, MES college road, 14th Cross and Kaadumalleshwara witnessed uprooting of trees. Besides there were complaints of tree fall from Sanjay Nagar, Gandhinagar, Sheshadripuram, JP Nagar 2nd Phase, Rajajinagar, Jalahalli, Jayanagar 4th T Block and Marigowda Road,” said a BBMP official from the West Zone.

Unlike the Sunday’s and Tuesday’s strong winds, Bengaluru on Wednesday evening witnessed phenomenally high speed wind blowing at 62 to 75 km per hour according to meteorologists. Commuters who were stuck on Sampige Road, Malleshwaram were at shock when trees and branches started falling on parked vehicles. A BBMP official said that an auto rickshaw and a few bikes were damaged due to the incident.

Bescom suffers severe damage

The Tuesday’s rains and strong wind delivered a major blow to the infrastructure of Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (Bescom) by bringing down a total of 262 electric poles across its jurisdictional area and disrupting power supply in as many as 349 places.

A spokesperson from Bescom said, “In Bengaluru alone a total of 140 electric poles were broken, the highest 59 poles in Southern parts of the city. Similarly, a total of 33 poles were broken in North, another 26 in the East and 22 poles in Western parts. In Tumakuru also about 93 poles were damaged,” the official said.

On Wednesday evening, the company witnessed falling of poles at 21 locations and power connection was snapped in 21 places. “In Malleshwaram (North) about five poles were broken and in 15 places, the power transmission lines were snapped resulting in power cuts for a few hours. However, our engineers were quick to resume operations through alternative lines,” an engineer clarified.