Here are the big stories from Karnataka today

Karnataka Today newsletter: Landslides, flooding alert and inundation as rain havoc continues in State, and more

In view of heavy rains in the catchment area of the Cauvery and anticipated increase in inflow to the Krishnaraja Sagar (KRS) reservoir, authorities in Mandya district have identified 92 villages as vulnerable to flooding. The Cauvery Neeravari Nigam Limited (CNNL) has said that surplus water could be released at any moment. People along the river banks and low-lying areas have been told to move to safer places.

Meanwhile, Mysuru-Nanjangud highway was affected owing to heavy outflow from the Kabini reservoir, in Mysuru district. All vehicles proceeding from Mysuru to Nanjangud, Ooty in Tamil Nadu and Wayanad in Kerala via Gundlupet were being diverted. The highway tends to get flooded whenever the outflow from the Kabini reservoir exceeds 60,000 cusecs.

In quick response to an SoS by Dakshina Kannada MP Captain Brijesh Chowta to run special trains between Mangaluru and Bengaluru in view of the snapped road connectivity, the South Western Railway announced the launch of special services between the two cities in Karnataka. SWR will run three services in each direction starting Friday, July 19 night.

On July 19 morning, Mr. Chowta wrote a letter to SWR seeking immediate operation of special trains to help people who were affected by the closure of Shiradi and Sampaje Ghats on the main Mangaluru-Bengaluru routes. following landslides He followed up with multiple telephone calls to the Ministers and officials concerned to ensure that SWR came out with an action plan.

The Microsoft outage impacted the movement of flights at Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru on July 19. A spokesperson of the airport said that Indigo, Air India Express, Akasa Air and SpiceJet were impacted. As airline staff initiated manual check-ins to minimise disruptions, long queues were seen near Terminal-1 of KIA.

BIAL spokesperson said, “A global outage with the Navitaire Departure Control System (DCS) has been affecting operations of some airlines across their network, including KIA, since 10.40 IST on July 19, 2024...The Common Use Terminal Equipment (CUTE) and Common Use Self Service (CUSS) systems are also experiencing disruptions.” Read all the live updates here.

Two years after the Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (Bescom) started replacing old electro-mechanical meters with new electrostatic, or digital meters, the project has neared completion. So far, at least 17,90,882 electro-mechanical meters have made way for 17,12,977 digital meters.