COIMBATORE: Intense rainfall that pounded the city from Sunday afternoon through the early hours of Monday triggered severe inundation in Selvapuram, leaving several hundred residents marooned in knee-deep contaminated water. Water entered their living rooms, bringing snakes, dead rodents and insects, severely disrupting daily routines and preventing scores of workers and college students from stepping out.The worst affected were the residential stretches abutting Selvachinthamani Lake on the Sundakkamuthur Road, particularly Ashok Nagar and Prabhu Nagar. Low-lying streets were flooded, before water entered ground floor houses. Home appliances, groceries, and parked vehicles were submerged in water.On Monday morning, minister for backward classes welfare V Sampath Kumar, alongside Coimbatore corporation mayor R Ranganayaki, district collector Pavankumar G Giriyappanavar, and corporation commissioner Katta Ravi Teja, inspected the inundated localities. Wading through knee-deep water, the minister distributed essential relief items and food packets to stranded residents, directing field workers to accelerate dewatering operations on a war footing.The collector said the flooding stemmed from an overflow along the primary outlet channel linking the Selvachinthamani lake with the Ukkadam Periyakulam. “The stagnation was caused by an unprecedented volume of storm run-off rather than any structural blockage in the channel. Coimbatore received over 80mm of rainfall in a short span of three hours on Sunday,” he said. He added that the civic body has been tasked with drafting a comprehensive engineering plan to widen the connecting conduit, expanding its carrying capacity to serve as a permanent fix.Civic authorities deployed around 100 sanitary workers and 15 high-capacity sewage suction tankers to pump floodwaters from streets into disposal points. In Prabhu Nagar, floodwaters entered several households and submerged at least eight two-wheelers parked along the driveways.Residents expressed frustration over recurring civic failures. Nagarani, a resident of Ashok Nagar, recounted the horror of waking up to rising water at night. “At 2am on Monday, water rushed into our house. We had to carry our young children and rush upstairs to the first floor. It is the same ordeal every monsoon,” she said. “Slithering snakes and insects entered the house, and costly electrical appliances including the washing machine, motor pumps, and refrigerator were ruined. Last year alone, we spent over Rs 4 lakh replacing water-damaged household items. Despite paying all local property taxes diligently, we are abandoned to face this nightmare repeatedly.”T S Vishnu Kumar, who runs a training academy in Bengaluru, was forced to cancel his travel plans. “Water entered our compound on Sunday night and was lapping at the threshold. Corporation workers had to dump gravel to prevent the flow from entering our living room, but I was unable to head back to Bengaluru after weekend here,” he said.According to data released by the district disaster management authority, Coimbatore logged a cumulative 1,232mm of rainfall across various recording stations, averaging 53.57mm, from 7.30am on Oct 25 to 7.30am on Oct 26. Madukkarai taluk recorded the highest precipitation at 130 mm, closely followed by Varappatti in Sulur at 128mm and Podanur at 118mm.
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