Heavy rains lash Nilgiris, put tourists in a spot

OOTY: Heavy rains rocked the hills here for the third consecutive day on Saturday. Storm water inundating the low-lying roads made commuting distressful in the tourists busy Charring Cross and Garden road here.

Though very late this year, the summer showers which began in the middle of this week have begun to pound the hills for the past three days.   

The rains were particularly heavy in the town limits here on Saturday. This, of course, played havoc with the sightseeing trips of the huge array of summer tourists who have congregated here due to the extended weekend.

The rains that began around 1.15 pm on Saturday began to pound the hills for more than an hour.  

That saw storm-water instantly gushing down the slopes in many areas, carrying with it the eroded soil and mud deposited on the road sides.  This eventually saw all the slush and other garbage washed away getting accumulated in the Charring Cross bus stop area, making commuting very agonizing for for bus passengers waiting there.

This apart, the storm water that inundated the low-lying areas along Charring Cross junction as well as the Garden road, both the roads are known for busy tourists’ movement, made life really distressful for the touring public to move around. The local municipal administration need to address this issue to pave way for free flow of storm water during heavy rains in these areas, say locals.

While the heavy rains as usual affected boating operations for nearly three hours in the lake, the inundation in the vegetable fields posed threat to standing hill vegetable crops like potato and carrot. Rainfall data showed that in an hour’s heavy precipitation here on Saturday, this hill town recorded 30 mm of rain.