Heavy rains in Kodagu cause massive floods and landslides

Mysuru: Amid covid situation, heavy rains which continued to lash Kodagu for the fifth day continued to cause landslides at atleast eight places, flooded several places and hit normal life and obstructed road connectivity on Thursday.

Four people of family of a priest of Talacauvery temple went missing, after their house at Talacauvery collapsed due to landslide in Brahmagiri hills.

So far atleast 48 people of 20 families of Kodagu who are hit by floods are moved to three relief centres, and several families hit by floods are being shifted to their relatives’ places too.

While the triveni sangam at Bagamandala is full, the connectivity between Bagamandala and Madikeri and Napoklu is obstructed.

And hence advance rescue team of NDRF team (which has arrived at Kodagu two months in advance) struggled hard along with district natural disaster management team to reach Talacauvery to trace the family members of priest who have gone missing. The rescue operation is still on and those four people are yet to be traced.

Meanwhile Kodagu district minister Mr V Somanna said that the district administration had requested the Priest’s family which has gone missing now, a month in advance and even a week ago,  to move out of that house. But they had refused to relocated, he said.

While the landslides at Talacuavery has collided yet another house too in Talacauvery, that house was reportedly empty as they had moved to their new house in Bagamandala, according to Kodagu DC Ms Annies Kanmani Joy.

There were also landslides on Sampinge Katte-Makkandur road, Madikeri-Kutta road, Bagamandala-Karike road near Patti Ghat, four landslides at Chettalli Madikeri road before Abhyathmangala and other places in Kodagu.

Heavy rains also flooded several places and Bhethri bridge between Madikeri and Virajpet was submerged by Cauvery river. 150 people from Nellihudikeri , seven people from flood hit Hoddooru village were shifted to safer places. Two houses were flooded at the backwaters of Cauvery river at Yemme Maadu. And a tree fell on a house in Yemme maadu. And families of all three houses from Yemme maadu have been shifted to their relatives’ places. Heavy rains also flooded Kuvempu layout, Sai layout, in Kushalnagar.

48 people of 20 families are being moved to three relief centres including KVG college Bagamandala, Government primary schools at Karadigodu and Chikkapete in Virajpet.

Trees which uprooted due to rains obstructed connectivity between several places including Gonikoppa pollibetta road in Virajpet taluk and others.

Kodagu recorded 177.07 mm of rainfall between 8am on Wednesday and 8am on Thursday. Kodagu has recorded 1298.78mm of rainfall so far since January this year, and during the same period last year, it recorded 1016.13mm of rainfall.

Meanwhile Indian Meteorological Department has issued orange alert predicting very heavy rainfall between 115.6mm to 204.4mm on Friday too.

Meanwhile Kodagu has so far recorded 610 covid 19 positive cases and 10 deaths, and 231 cases are active, and it has 169 containment zones.

Kodagu suffered massive floods and landslides during south west monsoons in the past two years, and 18 people died and 8211 people were shifted to 50 relief centres during 2019, and 21 people died, 7594 people were rescued and housed at 51 relief centres in 2018.

Meanwhile due to heavy rains in Kodagu, Harangi reservoir continued to receive heavy inflow 9081 cusecs. And with excess outflow of 11,811 cusecs from Harangi reservoir, the led to increased inflow of 37068 cusecs at Krishna Raja Sagar dam in Mandya district too increased.

And due to heavy incessant rainfall at Wayanad in Kerala, Kabini reservoir at Beechanahalli at HD Kote in Mysuru district continued to receive heavy inflow of 37,462 cusecs and as much as 43,333 cusecs was released to Cauvery river leading to Tamilnadu.

And a flood alert has been issued to people at the downstream of Harangi reservoir in Kodagu district, and Kabini reservoir in Mysuru district.

And people on both banks of the rivers and on the low lying areas of river have been directed to move to safer places and take all precautionary measures for safety and security of their lives and properties.