Search on for man washed away in drain

 Rescue and search operations to trace Shantha Kumar (34), who was washed away in a stormwater drain during heavy rain on Saturday night, failed to yield any result.

Personnel from Fire and Emergency Services and the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) suspended the operations on Sunday evening. However, the search would resume on Monday.

According to the BBMP officials, Kumar and two others were operating an earthmover to clear silt from a stormwater drain near Maruthi Nagar on Saturday evening.

Around 7 pm, when it started raining, the machine began to slip into the drain. While Kumar remained in the vehicle, his colleagues jumped out. Kumar failed to swim due to increased flow in the drain and was washed away.

“The Vrushabhavathy Valley is 15 km in length, but we are searching for him on a 7-km stretch from Maruthi Nagar to Bangalore University,” said a BBMP official.

Bengaluru Development Minister K J George, who reviewed the search operations near Kurubarahalli, said the compensation will be decided after Kumar is found. He said that Kumar should have taken care of himself while he was working on the site.

Officials said that the search was difficult as the drain was highly polluted. Local residents recalled that there were two such incidents in the last two years. In both cases, they said, the search operations failed to even trace the bodies of those who went missing.