Heavy inflow: 10,000 people shifted to saftey to release water from UK dams

Karwar: Swift evacuation of about 10,000 people from flood-prone villages and calculated release of water from five major dams helped in restricting the casualty figure to just one in Uttara Kannada district.

District in-charge secretary Munish Maudgil, deputy commissioner Harish Kumar and other officials are constantly monitoring the rising level of water in five major dams and regulating release of water from them to reduce the impact on the villages downstream. Whenever the tide in the Arabian Sea is high, less amount of water flows from the Kadra dam (the last dam downstream built across the Kali), but during low tide the outflow is stepped up. Besides, water was released from the Kodasalli dam after monitoring the level in Kadra dam.

The lone casualty was a bike rider who died when a tree collapsed on him.

Mangaluru: Rain battered Dakshina Kannada district on Friday, flooding several villages in the foothills of the Western Ghats and forcing around 250 people to move to safety.

The rain was the heaviest in three decades in the villages of Didupe, Killur, Kolli, Kanarpa and others in Belthangady. The flooded Netravathi cut off Kolli and a few other places for some hours and as villagers took shelter at the Kolli Sri Durgadevi Temple and later a school, the deputy commissioner ordered people living near the river too to move to safer ground.

With the Netravathi overflowing at the Dharmasthala Snana Ghatta, the main road and shops near the Netravathi Bridge in Dharmasthala were flooded. Traffic was hit for a few hours as the National Highway 75 went under water in Udane village. Harekala village in Mangaluru taluk, Sarapady, Aladka and nearby areas in Bantwal, Uppinangady, Panjala in Puttur, Kadaladka, Mittur, Panja, Arambodi, Perodi in Sullia and Ucchila, Kulkunda, Alankar in Kadaba were also flooded as rain continued to lash the district.