Portion of fort wall around Mysore Palace collapses due to rain

Incessant rains in the region over the past few days caused a portion of the fortification around Mysuru Palace. The collapsed portion of the defensive structure is located between Bisilu Maramma temple and Jayamarthanda Gate on the southeastern side.

According to the Mysuru Palace Board officials, a length of 20 meters and height of seven meters the fort wall was found crumbled on Tuesday morning by palace workers.

Mysuru Palace Board Deputy Director T S Subramanya said that the sound impact of cannon firing during Dasara festivities rehearsals—which was done to acclimatise the elephants to the sounds during the Jamboo Savari procession—had caused a crack in the wall.

“We had requested the City Police to shift the acclimatisation venue. Thus, for the second and third rehearsals it was changed to the parking lot opposite Dasara Exhibition Grounds, this time,” he said.

Mysuru Palace Board officials added that since they noticed the crack, they had floated an e-procurement tender for restoration of the fort wall up to a stretch of 50 meters, including the portion where it collapsed, at a cost of Rs 39 crore.

“The work was supposed to begin on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the wall collapsed due to continuous rains. The tender holders have already begun the restoration work on Tuesday itself,” they said, adding, “Since it is a historical heritage structure, we are following all the norms to restore a heritage structure. We are using the same material and mechanism used to build the wall, including the same stones and bricks.”

“The project period is 90 days. If it continues to rain, we may have to give a slight extension,” the officials said.

While the exact time of the incident is not ascertained, the workers of the Palace Board noticed it on Tuesday morning, when they came to work.