BENGALURU: An incident that occurred in the early hours of Tuesday has highlighted that apart from potholes and bad road conditions below our feet, there are overhead problems too — freely dangling optic fibre and power cables.One such dangling power cable, on Immanahalli Road near Channasandra government school, in East Bengaluru, got stuck in a heavily-loaded moving truck. As the driver continued on his path, oblivious to the hitched cable, electric poles that the cable was connected to fell one after the other, bringing down other cables with them in a domino effect, causing a huge commotion for over 30 minutes.
Although the incident occurred in a fraction of seconds, it spread panic among commuters and bystanders, and several motorists left their vehicles and ran for cover, fearing that the uprooted poles would come crashing down on them. Vijayesh Vijaydharan, a resident of Immanahalli Road, said, “I dropped my son at the spot where the school bus picks him up at 7.45am, and was standing by the roadside when I saw people running and screaming, as electric cables were falling on them.
As I watched, electric poles started falling, and I rushed to a safer place. Everyone then asked the truck driver to stop.”Vijaydharan pointed out that the incident occurred around the time when school buses pick up children, and left many buses stranded for a long time.
Another resident, Vivek T, said that dangling cables have always been a problem, and many have even complained to BESCOM, but in vain. This freak accident also led to several parts of the locality being deprived of power. Residents raised complaints with BESCOM, after which the utility’s staffers reached the spot and cleared some cables. A resident said that apart from cables, they had complained about poor road condition to BBMP, but it fell on deaf ears.