At 8 AM on the 20th of September, we got a call from Mulki panchayath that a lot of low lying residential areas have been flooded due to heavy rains in the past three days. A trained team of 12 from Mantra Surf Club, led by Shamanth Kumar and Kiran Kumar along with local Panchayath members headed towards Kelenjur village, near Kinnigoli. The teams with the inflatable zodiac, kayaks, canoe, life jackets, rescue tubes, and ropes. Amidst the heavy downpour, the rescue team got into action and evacuated 12 families consisting of infants to elderly people. The conditions were rough, with strong winds and heavy currents from the Nandini river flowing adjacent to the rescue site. The operation was carried out in under 90mins, evacuating people to safer grounds successfully.
Further hearing the distress calls from other locations, we split the team into two. The teams were led by Shamanth Kumar, and Kiran Kumar respectively.
A team of 6 led by Shamanth Kumar, headed towards the waterlogged areas of Kilpady and Shimanthur. This operation posed a very tricky situation to the team since they had to reach the locations shared on google maps. The roads were submerged, there wasn’t anyone to ask for landmarks. The pickup truck stopped near the waterlogged area and we began to paddle on our kayaks and canoe in search of the distressed homes. We located the houses and rescued over 20 people to safer grounds. The rescue also involved cattle and pets from the affected houses.
Another team led by Kiran Kumar marched towards Adhikaribettu, and Ulepady, to rescue the stranded. The team faced a hard time convincing the elderly to be rescued since the rains had altered, and bringing them to an assumption things will be back to normal. The locals stepped forward to make the stranded understand the intensity of the situations. Which eased up the operation to successfully evacuate Seven families to safer ground.
Special thanks to members of Mantra Rescue Team, Shamanth Kumar, Kiran Kumar, Arjun Achar, Druva Das, Chandan Hamse, Abhishek Tholar, Naveen, Nagaraj, Girish, Gaurav Hegde, Jnanesh Salian, Adithya Rao.
Our efforts were well appreciated by villagers, Mulki Nagara Panchayat, Government authorities, and media, for carrying out the Rescue operation safely and professionally.
Here are some of the news channels and places where we were featured
