Bengaluru rains: Death toll rises to four as thunderstorm brings city to a standstill

Bengaluru: Four persons were killed as heavy monsoon rain wreaked havoc across the city, a civic official said on Saturday. [caption id=“attachment_3995267” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. PTI[/caption] “Three persons, including a couple died on Friday night when a huge tree fell on their car near Minerva circle in the southern suburb,” Bruhat Bengaluru Mahangara Palike (BBMP) spokesman Suresh told IANS. The victims were Ramesh, 42, his wife Bharati, 38, and her brother Jagadish, 46. The mishap occurred when the victims stopped their car under the tree amid the downpour and waited for it to subside. A BBMP rescue team pulled their bodies out of the mangled car and sent them to the nearby state-run Victoria Hospital for autopsy. City Mayor G Padmavathi announced Rs 5 lakh compensation to the family of the victims. In another incident, the body of a teenager was recovered from an overflowing water drain at Seshadripurm in the city’s western suburb. “The victim has been identified as Arun, 18, who accidentally slipped into the drain near Shivananda circle and was washed away for some distance before our staff located his body and pulled it out,” added Suresh. A record 65 mm monsoon rain from Friday evening till midnight uprooted about 60 trees and scores of electric poles, blocking vehicular movement and snapping power lines in several residential and commercial localities. The downpour also inundated low-lying areas and flooded subways, passages under flyovers and rail bridges as the rain water overflowed from the clogged drainage system. “We have formed 21 special teams to clear the roads of uprooted trees and unclog the sewage system for letting the rainwater flow into the storm water drains across the city”, Padmavathi told the media on Saturday. With the south-west monsoon remaining active, the city has been receiving moderate to heavy rain over the last 10 days, which improved the ground water levels and filled ponds, lakes and water bodies in its urban and rural districts. The met office has forecast that moderate to heavy rain will continue over the next two days, with squally winds and an overcast sky.