Bengaluru, 17 May

A fierce pre-monsoon downpour wreaked havoc on Saturday evening, paralysing Bengaluru’s traffic and leaving large parts of the city submerged in knee-deep water.

Gusty winds touching 50 kmph accompanied relentless rain for the third consecutive day, flooding key arterial roads including Mysore Road, Shivajinagar, KR Market, Hosur Road, Peenya, Whitefield, and Jayanagar. Motorists crawled through kilometre-long tailbacks, with many vehicles stalling in axle-deep waterlogged stretches.

Overflowing stormwater drains turned roads in Peenya, Magadi Road, Majestic and Koramangala into mini-lakes, exposing the poor state of Bengaluru’s drainage infrastructure and ineffective desilting work. Garbage-laden floodwaters clogged junctions, further worsening the chaos.

Fallen tree branches in areas like BTM Layout, Rajajinagar and Koramangala blocked roads, with traffic police and civic workers attempting to clear them. The situation was aggravated by the IPL match between Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Kolkata Knight Riders at M Chinnaswamy Stadium, adding to the gridlock.

BBMP officials claimed emergency crews were on standby and pumps had been deployed in flood-prone areas. But their assurances offered little comfort to commuters stranded for hours on what should have been short trips.

The Indian Meteorological Department attributed the heavy rains to a depression over the Bay of Bengal fuelling moist easterlies into Karnataka. Salar News