Blackout at Hesaraghatta as truck crashes 35 electric poles; drunken driver held
Bengaluru: A major electrical disaster was averted on the Hesaraghatta main road early Saturday morning when the locals stopped a tipper truck, driven by a drunken driver, which pulled down 35 transmission poles. The driver has been taken into custody.
No casualties were reported in the incident that happened post-midnight, Times of India reported. The tipper pulled down 35 transmission poles of 11kv low tension (LT) power installed within a stretch of one kilometer, disrupting electricity supply to areas like Soladevanahalli, Chikkabanavara, Dwaraka Nagar and Bagalagunte.
Chikkabanavara traffic police stated that the truck was transporting sand to a construction site near Hesaraghatta around 1.30 am in the morning. The driver, identified as Subramani, was under the influence of alcohol and made an error in identifying the gear lever and the hydraulic switch. As a result, he used both, the lever and the switch, resulting in the dumper on the tipper being lifted and getting entangled with the transmission lines beside the road. Unaware of the impending disaster, he continued to drive the truck down the road for more than a kilometer, pulling down the conductors and transmission poles along.
The power lines tripped because of his rash driving and residents of the area, who heard a loud noise, rushed out of their houses in panic. They saw the truck plucking out the electric poles and hurriedly stopped the driver. They also informed the BESCOM officials and the police about the incident. The driver was taken into custody and a breath analyzer test revealed that he had consumed alcohol beyond the permissible limit.
A BESCOM official said that their engineers realized the intensity of the damage done after reaching the spot. However, an alarm had gone off at the control room earlier when the feeder got tripped immediately after the transmission lines snapped, indicating a disastrous situation. The severity of damage to the electrical infrastructure resulted in loss of power supply to nearly 10,000 houses.
HJ Ramesh, Director (Technical) of BESCOM, concurred that there was heavy damage to the conductors and insulation at various points and the company would have to replace them. BESCOM succeeded in completing a major part of the replacement work and ensured that power supply was re-established to the houses in the affected areas by 6 pm on Saturday. BESCOM engineers were involved in estimating the value of the overall loss and the details would be shared with the police department later. The losses would be recovered from the tipper owner, sources in BESCOM stated.
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Bengal polls: RG Kar victim's mother files nomination as BJP candidate from Panihati
Kolkata (PTI): Ratna Debnath, mother of the raped-murdered RG Kar hospital doctor and the BJP candidate from Panihati, filed her nomination papers on Thursday.
She was accompanied by senior BJP leader and former Union minister Smriti Irani and district party leaders.
Speaking to reporters after filing her nomination, she said her sole aim is to oust the TMC regime in West Bengal, which, she alleged, would ensure women's safety in the state and prevent a recurrence of incidents like the RG Kar case.
Nearly a year and a half after the brutal killing of her 26-year-old daughter inside a locked seminar room of the state-run hospital in August 2024, Debnath agreed to contest the polls on a BJP ticket from her hometown Panihati after being approached by the party "to bring to light the truth behind the crime".
She is pitted against TMC's Tirthankar Ghosh and CPI(M)'s Kalatan Dasgupta.
