The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) in its report on Sunday’s tragedy, which claimed the life of 23-year-old Bhanurekha, blamed gusty winds that resulted in falling of dry leaves and branches, and the volume of rainfall for the flooding of the K.R. Circle underpass. The report also proposed construction of drains to check waterlogging.
It should be noted that the 23-year-old techie, working at Infosys, died after a multi-purpose utility vehicle (MUV) in which she was travelling along with her family, drowned in flood water at the underpass.
Unusual scenario
The report prepared by B.S. Prahlad, Chief Engineer (Road Infrastructure), BBMP, said “In an unusual scenario, flooding at the underpass was caused by rainwater that carried leaves and branches that had fallen due to gusty winds.”
The volume of the rain in a brief span of one hour which was 24.7 mm, was also cited as a reason for the neck-deep waterlogging.
The report said that the dry leaves and branches closed the small vents of gratings placed on the drain, choking rainwater on the surface. This was found when fire attendants pumped the water out of the structure. The report claimed that although the existing drain has the capacity to push 12.5 lakh rainwater out every hour, the leaves stuck in the grantings made it impossible to channel the water.
What it proposes
The report also proposed building drains at the entry and the exit points to directly channel the rainwater, falling on four different roads converging at K.R. Circle, to the main storm-water drain. The report also recommended building humps at the entry point to slow down the movement of vehicles.
Besides installing surveillance cameras at the structure, the report has proposed to set up a vertical clearance gauge beam. The BBMP has recommended putting up a boom barrier to restrict the movement of vehicles during emergency flood situations. The report has set a deadline of 15 days to implement these measures.
