Car plunges into Visvesvaraya Canal; one escapes, driver missing

MANDYA: A car plunged into the Visvesvaraya Canal (VC) near Thibbanahalli today morning after the driver lost control. While one of the occupants of the car escaped, Lokesh, who was driving the car, is missing and a search is on to locate him.

Local swimmers secured the with thick ropes to hoist it out with the help of a crane.

Lokesh (45), who was driving the car, hails from Shivalli and runs a medical store along and is also into agriculture. He was on his way to Pandavapura today morning when the mishap occurred.

He had borrowed a friend’s car to visit Chamundi Hills in Mysuru on Wednesday and after returning, he did not return it as it was raining. Today morning, he was heading to Pandavapura when the incident occurred.

With water in full flow in the canal, the car was completely submerged. The police and Fire and Emergency Services personnel had to request the Irrigation Department authorities to stop water flow in the canal to bring up the car.

Hundreds of people gathered at the spot as the firemen and local divers secured the car with thick ropes using an inflatible boat to lift the vehicle out of the canal. It was finally brought out of the water with the help of a crane.

“We received a call from the Shivalli police station around 10 am that a car had fallen into the canal. We immediately rushed to the scene, deployed our inflatible boat in the canal and managed to retrieve the car. We are now looking for the missing driver downstream”, said Venkatesh, Fire Station Officer at Mandya.

Eyewitness Veerabhadra said, Lokesh, who was driving the car, managed to come out of the vehicle and screamed for help saying he didn’t know swimming. “Since I too don’t know how to swim, I couldn’t rescue him. He went into the water and never came up”, he said.

Fire Station Officer Venkatesh and (right) Jaishankar, a local resident.

“This is the third vehicle which has fallen into the canal. Earlier, a milk tanker and a bus had fallen into it”, said Jaishankar, a local resident.

In 2017, a bus had fallen into canal as there was no barrier. Then, the government had promised to build a barrier, but nothing has been done so far. Earlier, a 7-foot mud wall had been erected as a barrier, but the PWD had removed it to widen the road. The barrier was not put up after the road work was completed.

Melukote MLA Darshan Puttannaiah visited the spot and got details about the incident from SP Yathish.