It was a Sunday morning and 23-year-old Puneeta, who had finished work early, was sitting outside her 10ft x 20ft kachha house in Bengaluru's Hulimavu, when she heard noises of gushing water. Puneeta, who works as a domestic help in the area, lives in a colony close to the Hulimavu primary stormwater drain and such gushing noises were not new to her.
At around 11 am, the noises began getting louder and Puneeta became suspicious. She climbed on top of the tarpaulin roof of her house to see what was happening in the stormwater drain located close to her house. The water level had risen drastically. However, this did not scare her as she says it is a common sight of the rajakaluve (stormwater drain) being full, especially after the monsoon.
Puneeta was sitting outside her house with her sister and drinking a cup of coffee when the water suddenly began gushing towards her house. "We were caught by surprise. We were not prepared for something like this. I saw the water coming towards our house so fast. My sister and I began shouting and we gathered a few clothes and immediately locked up the house so the water would not enter," she said.
Within minutes, the sewage water from the Hulimavu Lake, which overflowed into the stormwater drain on Sunday, had submerged the 30 hutments in Puneeta's colony in Hulimavu's Krishna Layout.
The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) officials had dug up the bund to allow water to flow out as the lake was full. However, the bund's wall collapsed and the water flooded the homes of residents in a 2 km radius of the primary stormwater drain.
"There were around 50 to 60 of us living in around 30 houses in our colony. Water entered everyone's houses so quickly. We all left and went to our friends' and relatives' homes. Some of us stayed back hoping to be rescued but no one came for hours. At around 1 pm, the water had flooded the roads and houses located beyond our small colony. By that time, the water had entered the houses even though we had locked the door. That's when we decided to move out on our own," Puneeta said. She and her family members are currently living with a friend in Arekere area.
While people in the colony of hutments faced the brunt of the flood on Sunday morning, by 1.30 pm, the water had reached the road and the homes of people living near Vivekananda Road, where 32-year-old Bashir lives with his wife in a small room. Bashir works as a mason, while his wife works as a domestic help in the Hiranandani apartments located in Hulimavu.
"I could see the water flooding the houses near Krishna Layout. I went on top of my roof at around 1 pm to see what was happening when I heard people in the tea shop nearby talk about floods. The water was quickly coming towards my house. My wife and I packed up our things and dumped it in my Tata Ace (autorickshaw), which I drove to an area that was higher than where we lived," Bashir said.
By 2 pm, Bashir's house too had flooded and the cars parked on the roads adjacent to his house were all submerged. Bashir says that the Fire and Emergency Services personnel, NDRF and the local police arrived at around 1.30 pm to begin rescue operations and many residents, living in kachha houses and hutments in Krishna Layout and surrounding areas, were moved to the Hulimavu Government School where a temporary relief camp has been set up.
"The rich people all live in apartments and their houses did not flood. Garment workers, masons, house helps and daily wage workers -- we were the ones affected by this the most. We all got together and helped the police and others to erect a dam by using mud and debris. For now, the water flow has been stopped. I am still throwing out water from my house with buckets," Bashir says.
Bashir and Puneeta say that their homes and belongings have been destroyed and the one big question on their minds is whether they would be offered any compensation for the loss they have suffered. "We don't have money to even have a proper roof over our house. Our belongings were floating in the sewage water. Who will help us now?" Puneeta asks.
Bengaluru Mayor K Gautham Kumar, however, denied that the BBMP officials had come to dig up the bund. "Some people, we don't know who it is, tried to connect a pipe to the bund by digging a hole. This led to the flood. We are trying to find out who did it and action will be taken against them," he added. BBMP Mayor added that the civic body's officials would go to Hulimavu to assess the damage on Monday morning before taking a decision on the compensation.