Coimbatore floods left several hundred residents stranded in knee-deep contaminated water after more than 80mm of rain fell in three hours, inundating homes and streets near Selvachinthamani Lake on Sunday night and early Monday. Residents in Ashok Nagar and Prabhu Nagar, along Sundakkamuthur Road, reported water entering ground-floor houses, damaging appliances and vehicles, and bringing snakes, insects and dead rodents indoors.
The worst-affected residential stretches are located next to the lake’s primary outlet channel connecting Selvachinthamani Lake with Ukkadam Periyakulam. Low-lying streets were flooded before water entered homes, preventing workers and college students from leaving and disrupting routine movement in the neighbourhood.
Minister for Backward Classes Welfare V Sampath Kumar inspected the affected localities with Coimbatore mayor R Ranganayaki, district collector Pavankumar G Giriyappanavar and corporation commissioner Katta Ravi Teja. The minister distributed food packets and essential relief materials to stranded residents and directed field workers to speed up dewatering operations.
The district collector said the flooding was caused by an unusually high volume of storm runoff rather than a structural blockage in the outlet channel. Coimbatore received more than 80mm of rainfall within a three-hour period on Sunday, he said. The civic body has been asked to prepare a comprehensive engineering plan to widen the connecting conduit and increase its carrying capacity as a permanent measure.
Around 100 sanitary workers and 15 high-capacity sewage suction tankers were deployed to pump water from the flooded streets to disposal points. In Prabhu Nagar, at least eight two-wheelers parked in residential driveways were submerged, while several homes reported damage to washing machines, motor pumps, refrigerators, groceries and other household goods.
Residents said the flooding has become a recurring monsoon problem. Nagarani, an Ashok Nagar resident, said water rushed into her house at around 2am on Monday, forcing her family to carry young children upstairs. She said her family spent more than Rs 4 lakh replacing water-damaged household items during the previous year and questioned why repeated property-tax payments had not translated into protection from flooding.
T S Vishnu Kumar, who runs a training academy in Bengaluru, said water entered his compound on Sunday night and reached the threshold of his home. Corporation workers placed gravel to slow the flow, but he was unable to return to Bengaluru after the weekend.
Data from the district disaster management authority showed cumulative rainfall of 1,232mm across recording stations, with an average of 53.57mm, between 7.30am on October 25 and 7.30am on October 26. Madukkarai taluk recorded the highest rainfall at 130mm, followed by Varappatti in Sulur at 128mm and Podanur at 118mm. Authorities are now expected to complete the dewatering work and prepare the engineering plan for widening the lake outlet.
