Heavy downpour throws life out of gear in Kochi

Heavy downpour in Kochi causes widespread flooding, leaving motorists stranded and disrupting daily life in the city.

Uninterrupted heavy downpour that lasted close to three hours sank low-lying areas and left motorists stranded on roads, a majority of which were flooded, reducing traffic to a snail’s pace and throwing life out of gear in the city on Wednesday evening.

Heavy rain, which started around 4 p.m., lashed the city relentlessly till around 7 p.m. after which it lost intensity and was reduced to a drizzle. Amidst the mayhem, the Indian Meteorological department scaled up the ‘Orange’ alert for Ernakulam district to ‘Red’ along with Alappuzha and Kottayam districts. That the downpour coincided with high tide further worsened the state of affairs, hampering the draining out of rainwater.

Places notorious for annual flooding during the monsoon such as M.G. Road, Kalabhavan Road, Pulleppady Road, T.D Road, Ernakulam South, KSRTC bus stand, Karikkamuri, C.P. Ummar Road, Providence Road, Gopalaprabhu Road, Shanmugham Road, and Pulleppady went under water disrupting movement of motorists and pedestrians. In Edappally, the dug-up state of the road as part of the national highway widening made life nightmarish for two-wheeler riders who were left to rely on their good fortune alone to evade potholes.

Deepa Varma, councillor of the Edappally division, said that not just her division but the entire city was badly affected by the heavy rain. The road widening work by the National Highways Authority of India did pose difficulty to motorists, she admitted.

“Traffic through the area came to a halt as serpentine lines of vehicles stretched from Edappally up to Palarivattom. The road leading from Changampuzha Park to Ponekkara was also flooded. It was a nightmare even reaching up to my car parked by the roadside,” said Liyons Jos, who runs a training institute near Changampuzha Park and had a tough time driving his way back home at Ponekkara.

Sudha Dileepkumar, councillor of Ernakulam Central, said traders along M.G. Road were badly hit as no pre-monsoon cleaning was carried out along the stretch this time either by the Public Works department or the Kochi Corporation. Since the renovation of Mullassery canal is yet to be complete, the KSRTC bus stand also got flooded as usual, she said.

Giridhar R. Pai had recently moved out for rent from his half-a-century-old ancestral house on T.D. Road after being fed up with its unfailing flooding during every monsoon for the last decade. It was no different this time either. “We are now renovating the house with the foundation alone five meters high to avoid potential flooding in the future,” he said.