Waterworld: Bangalore, the Silicon River


Saturday night's rainfall of 121 mm was a strange leveller — the pavement dweller and the Ford commuter battled it out.

To start with, 7,500 phone lines with numbers starting 2573, have snapped. Telecom officials reckon it would take at least four days to restore order.

The most important roads in the city have been blocked — Mysore Road, Hosur Road, Magadi Road. Hosur Road, a national highway connecting important cities, the lifeline from East coast to west coast, buzzing with techies,is in limbo.

The highest-ever annual rainfall recorded in Bangalore stands at 1432 mm in 1998. Cut to now, as of Oct. 23, 2005, the rainfall has clocked 1401 mm already, as against the normal of 970 mm. There’s more — the highest ever recorded for October was 522 mm in 1956.

And the sad part is, it is still raining and will continue to rain heavily till Sunday (according to the forecast). It seems people should consider getting a hovercraft.. or atleast a boat. Temperature has droped down to ~20* C. God save Bangalore!