Madikeri: The southwest monsoon has intensified in Kodagu district, the catchment area of the Cauvery, resulting in the closure of schools and colleges on Wednesday and precautionary measures; Deputy Commissioner of Kodagu, Richard Vincent announced that all educational institutions in the district will remain closed on Thursday as well.
The entire district has received heavy rains with gale over the last 48 hours and alert has been issued in the region.
The district administration has alerted home guards in Bhagamandala specifically to make sure that communication links with adjoining places are not cut off. Boats have been kept standby to press into action in case of emergency.
Meanwhile, even as locals feared landslides, no incidents have been reported. However, at certain places trees were uprooted disturbing vehicular movements.
Officials said if the rains continued to lash the region with the same intensify for another week it would make up for the shortfall. The district received 127.74 mm of rainfall on Wednesday as against 3.28 mm during the corresponding period last year but the long-term average from January to June this year is 598.2 mm as against 1138 .07 mm received last year, reported The Hindu.
Madikeri taluk received 177.55 mm of rainfall this year and has so far received a cumulative rainfall of 928.84 mm during January to June this year as against 1,497.1 mm of rainfall last year.
Virajpet taluk also received heavy showers and the meteorological department registered 104.88 mm of rain on Wednesday. The rainfall has been uniform and widespread and Somwarpet taluk received 100.8 mm while it has received a cumulative rainfall of 413.07 mm from January to June this year as against 815.61 mm of rainfall that lashed the taluk last year. Other places in Kodagu which received heavy rains include Napoklu (188.4 mm), Sampaji (138.6), Srimangala (124), Ponnampet (117), Shantahalli (210) while Kushalnagar received 53 mm of rainfall and Suntikoppa received 50.2 mm of rainfall.
According to the Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre, Mysuru recorded 24.mm of rainfall during the 24 hour period ending 8.30 a.m. on Wednesday as against the normal 3.9 mm. The district has registered 43.3 mm of rainfall during the last seven days against the normal of 21.8 mm and even the monthly average for June is 107.8 mm as against the normal 84.5 mm.
