Workers in India’s Bangalore hop onto tractors to reach offices as city reels under floods
- Heavy monsoon rains in parts of India’s ‘Silicon Valley’ that houses global tech giants had led to homes being flooded and massive traffic jams
- Experts blamed the floods, which have forced many to use boats and tractors to get to work, on reckless urban development in the city
Torrential monsoon rains have flooded parts of the southern Indian city of Bangalore, triggering traffic snarls, power outages and forcing scores of residents to ride tractors and boats to get to work.
The deluge also crippled transport and business operations in the metropolis, known as India’s “Silicon Valley”, which is home to offices of global technology and financial giants like Google, Microsoft and Goldman Sachs. At least two people were killed in the floods, local media reported.
With most of the localities of the tech hub still submerged, videos on social media showed workers, including start-up bosses, hitching rides on tractors to reach their offices.
Authorities in Karnataka, of which Bangalore is the capital, said the city witnessed 150 per cent more rain than usual in the first week of September.
The state’s chief minister Basavaraj Bommai on Wednesday said in a tweet that “Karnataka, especially [Bangalore] has received unprecedented heavy rainfall compared to [the] last 90 years.”
Bommai’s administration also faced the wrath of frustrated residents stuck inside their marooned homes. Experts blamed the flooding on reckless urban development, including building office and residential towers near water bodies, and climate change.
