3 cars, five bikes smashed on Sri Harsha Road; MCC begins clearing drive; roads barricaded

Mysore/Mysuru: A huge Rain Tree fell across Sri Harsha Road last night, damaging three cars and five bikes. The tree also brought down a few electric poles,  snapping power cables.

The video of the crushed cars and bikes has gone viral along with the efforts of the Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) staff in clearing the mess.  Workers are expected to clear the rubble only by today evening as the tree trunk and branches are huge and heavy and need to be broken into small pieces.

Following continuous rains since over a month, the soil had dampened, resulting in the tree fall. The tree was located in a park opposite to Hotel RRR on Sri Harsha Road. The impact of the car was such that three cars (one rented self-driven car), one Alto and one Innova) that were parked opposite the hotel were crushed beyond recognition. Five two-wheelers have also been damaged in the incident.

It is learnt that tourists, who had hired the self-driven car, had taken rooms at a lodge on Sri Harsha Road and had parked the car in front of the lodge. As the tree fell on power lines, a few electric poles also came crashing along with the cables, plunging the area into darkness. Luckily, no major injuries took place except for a person, who sustained minor injuries.

Following the incident, the Police barricaded the road last night and today morning, MCC’s Abhaya team members were seen chopping away the tree using motor chain saws and loading the tree trunk and huge branches to a goods vehicle with the help of a crane.

The road is expected to be cleared by this evening as staff from Chamundeshwari Electricity Supply Corporation (CESC) were also erecting new electric poles and drawing power cables to restore power supply. Meanwhile, the public said that the MCC should identify weak trees and dry branches and should cut them to prevent such incidents from taking place in future.