MYSURU: Traffic on the busy Bengaluru-Mysuru road was again affected and normal life crippled due to heavy rain lashing the Old Mysuru region over the last few days. Weekend travellers to Mysuru had to come through Malavalli or Bellur Cross via Pandavapura as the Badanur tank between Mandya and Maddur breached. This is the second time in over a month that the national highway has been flooded causing severe inconvenience to people travelling from Bengaluru to Mysuru and further.
The overflowing tank damaged paddy and other standing crops in hundreds of acres, while service roads on the highway had 4 ft of water for over 2 km. Officials put up sandbags and diverted water gushing towards the highway, managing to restore the normal traffic movement by Saturday evening.
District in-charge minister K Gopalaiah visited the breached Budanaur tank and directed officials to strengthen the bund. He asked them to assess the damage caused to farmers over the last two months. The Lokapavani river in Srirangapatna taluk was flowing over the danger mark, flooding Lingapura village in Pandavapura taluk and forcing villagers to spend a sleepless night. Aladahalli tank in Malavalli taluk too breached, damaging crops in the achukat area and flooding the Mysuru-Malavalli road.
Over 65 houses were damaged and crops destroyed in Hunsur, KR Nagar, H D Kote and Nanjangud taluks in Mysuru district. Farmers demanded that encroachments along feeder canals connecting the tanks should be removed to reduce flooding. In Yachenagahalli of T Narsipur taluk, around 150 acres of paddy fields have been damaged and five members of a family in Srirampura had a miraculous escape when the wall of their house collapsed.
In Mysuru city, Bogadi tank was overflowing and the main road connecting Bogadi was flooded. In Chamarajanagar district, farms were flooded as 15,000 cusecs of water from the Chikkahole dam was released into the Suvarnavathi river following heavy rain on the Tamil Nadu border.