Bengaluru flood heroes share their stories

As the rain battered the K R Circle underpass on May 21, they dove right in, risking their lives to save an Infosys techie and her family

Two men who plunged in to save 23-year-old Batula Bhanurekha on May 21 thought they would die that day.

A TV cameraman and a car driver were among the first to jump into the flooded K R Circle underpass to save those who were stuck. They have since been felicitated by the BBMP and the traffic police.

Vijayakumara A

Vijayakumar A, a driver working for Public TV, was returning from Ambedkar Road to his office in Yeshwanthpur when he noticed people shouting for help.

“I was in the car with one of our reporters and cameraman and we were heading back after getting some footage of the rains. The downpour was extremely heavy. I hadn’t seen it rain with such force in a while,” he recalls.

Upon reaching the underpass, he noticed that the car was almost totally submerged, and the water level was rapidly rising. “Just one window was slightly open, and as the rain beat down, the water inside the car rose too. It was at this moment that I knew that I had to jump in,” he told Metrolife.

Deeper than expected

Confident about his swimming, Vijayakumar entered the underpass, only to find that the water was much deeper than he had imagined — almost up to his neck. “If I was not a somewhat experienced swimmer, I wouldn’t have survived that day. When I got to the car, I noticed that there were six or seven people, and we tried our best to be quick in the rescue,” he says.

After he entered the underpass, Aviraj M, a News First employee, and a police constable joined him. The fire department arrived after about 15 minutes, he says.

Aviraj M being felicitated.

“We got all the passengers out by cracking a window open. We helped the occupants to the top of the car one by one. The most difficult part was to get Bhanurekha out. She was already unconscious. We had to pull her out by her hair,” says the 35-year-old.

When his employers and the Karnataka Union of Working Journalists came to know of his heroic work, they honoured him too.

‘Thought I’d die’

Cameraman Aviraj’s first instinct wasn’t to record the incident but to save lives. “I only asked myself one question: If my family were in the situation, wouldn’t I jump in? Once this got into my head, I jumped in without even taking off my clothes,” he says.

The entire situation required a lot of physical and mental strength, recollects the 37-year-old. “When I went towards the family, they were terrified. They didn’t know Kannada and were trying to tell us that there was another passenger who was unconscious. They were crying and shivering,” he says.

After bringing Bhanurekha — she was unconscious and had swallowed large amounts of water — to the surface, when Aviraj went back to help the rest, they were wary to accept his help. “They were traumatised, and were scared to get off the top of the car. Some couldn’t swim. While convincing them, there was a moment when I thought I was completely gone. I even shut my eyes and said a small goodbye to my family.”

He applauds the courage of a bystander, a woman, who had offered her sari to help pull to safety those stuck in the underpass. “She is one of the true heroes in this incident. We should appreciate her courage. It makes me proud that we all came together as a community to help, but I wish we could’ve saved the poor girl,” he says.

WHAT HAPPENED

On May 21, when the city witnessed a downpour, Infosys employee Batula Bhanurekha drowned when the car she was travelling in stopped in the middle of the flooded KR Circle underpass. Five members of her family were rescued from the car. The family, which had come on a tour from Andhra Pradesh to Bengaluru, had rented a car for sightseeing.

‘DON’T BE A BYSTANDER’

Aviraj requests the public to “never be a bystander” in moments of crisis. “Be helpful in whatever way you can. The trend is to take videos for social media. Let’s move away from that,” he says. Vijayakumar advises drivers to develop a strong presence of mind, and anticipate risks. “Don’t take a shortcut. At the end of the day, passengers get into our cars trusting us,” he says.