Flooded apartments, lack of drinking water force residents at L B Shastri Nagar in Bengaluru to check into hotels

Bengaluru: The rains that battered the city this week have caused an unprecedented nightmare for a couple of apartments at L B Shastri Nagar, off Old Airport Road. The 132 families at Fern Saroj apartments have had no water or electricity following the flooding of their apartment. Some have left their houses and checked into hotels while a few have moved into homes of relatives or friends.

The basement of a few houses has been flooded with water up to five feet since Sunday night and all vehicles had to be parked on the road outside. The cascading impact of it is many kids from five apartments nearby have not been able to attend school as their buses could not enter or exit here.

Their neighbours at `RR Castles’ suffered for a day but hired a fire engine for Rs 10,000 and removed the water from their basement on Monday. One car got submerged.

Padmaja Ramamurthy and her family were noticed leaving Fern Saroj with a few belongings by car “We have young twin kids. It is not possible to manage with them without basic



amenities. We are heading to a hotel now and will return after the situation improves,” she said.

Fern Saroj apartment owners association president V Prabhakar told The New Indian Express, “We were forced to switch off the electricity supply point as it is in our flooded basement. Borewell water used for drinking cannot be pumped without power. We asked BBMP's help but were told to arrange pump sets on our own. We are hiring them and hope to clear the basement in a day or two.”

While some houses have inverters, the backup in it lasts only for a few hours plunging them into darkness, say, residents. A resident requesting anonymity said, “All the drains lining all the houses on 7th A Cross are choked with garbage. Water overflowed in all of them and entered our apartment.”

N R Raman, a senior citizen, who has lived here for 21 years says, “I have never seen something like this. The overflow from Vibuthipura Lake behind our apartment into a drain by the side of our apartment is also a reason for the crisis.”