Incessant rains that lashed the district from June 2 destroyed a house at Keyar village of Beltangady taluk and damaged four in Bajal, Someshwar, Mulky and Katipalla. The district administration estimated the loss at `1 lakh.
Houses in Narohna compound near Srinivas College in Pandeshwar were inundated with rain water on Monday.
Residents Umanath and Susheela said that they had been residing in the area for over 60 years and never in the past was their houses inundated with rain water.
The residents attributed the flash floods to illegal closing of a culvert which was draining the rain water. Residents accused one Octavia and Olivia, who are allegedly attempting to evict them from the area by closing the culvert. “On June 2, we submitted a memorandum to Mangalore City Corporation (MCC) on how the closure of the culvert will trigger flash floods,” they said and feared that stagnation of water would lead their houses made of mud walls to collapse.
Sewage mixing with rain water is posing the threat of spreading contagious diseases. Responding to the memorandum, a health officer had inspected the area and ordered that the culvert be desilted.
Bulldozer Stuck
Though a bulldozer was engaged to desilt the culvert, the work was abandoned half-way, claimed the residents. Gururaj recollected having warned Mangalore City Corporation (MCC) of such a situation as early as in February.
“I had submitted a memorandum to the MCC on February 19, warning that the blocked culvert would trigger flash floods in the area,” he alleged.
The desilting of a storm drain near Bengre-Kuloor was abandoned after a bulldozer got bogged down in the loose silt.
The machine was pressed to service to prevent flash floods. But with the machine getting struck in the mud, cranes had to be summoned to extricate the machine.
19.9mm Rainfall
Dakshina Kannada district received a good rainfall of 19.9 mm on Monday.
Mangalore, Beltangady and Bantwal taluks topped the list with rainfall of 29.3, 29.6 and 20.4 mm, respectively. While Puttur received a rainfall of 12.2 mm, Sullia received a rainfall of 8 mm. The district witnessed a total rainfall of 444.9 mm between January and June. While the average rainfall received in the district during the corresponding period a year ago was 165.4 mm.
