When the skies opened up...& North K'taka bore the brunt

The spot on National Highway 66 near Shirur town of Ankola taluk in Uttara Kannada district where a landslide took place, killing 10 people in its wake.

Bengaluru: Karnataka suffered loss of life and property on account of heavy rain and landslides in 2024 a year after drought tormented the state. Torrential downpour and flooding plagued the state in July. In north Karnataka districts such as Belagavi, Vijayapura and Bagalkote bore the brunt of heavy rains in the Western Ghats in Maharashtra as it has contributed heavily to the inflow of the Krishna River.

As a result, dams constructed on the river reached Full Reservoir Limit (FRL) and were forced to release huge amounts of water, inundating and cutting off entire villages from others. By August, the State government had announced that there had been 58 deaths due to the rain, adding that 80,000 hectares of crops had been destroyed. On July 16, a landslide occurred on National Highway (NH) 66 near Shirur village of Ankola taluk in Uttara Kannada district, burying at least 10 people who eventually died.

A hillock had caved in, covering the four-lane highway in seconds. According to cops, five persons among the 10 belonged to a single family that ran a hotel near the spot. The rest were customers in the same hotel, they added. Similarly, in October, heavy rains claimed the lives of 25 people in Karnataka, according to government figures. The same data showed that crops on 74,993 hectares had been destroyed in addition to horticultural produce.