Lineman braves floodwaters to help villagers, wins hearts | VIDEO

Hubballi, Sep 17: A lineman is being hailed as hero after he risked his life by swimming up to a submerged transformer and switching it on, so that the water supply to the village could be restored.

Manjunath Kumbar (25), who hails from Konnur village in Karnataka's Nargund taluk, swam through swelling floodwaters to turn on an electric transformer so that a parched village could get drinking water.

Amid the heavy rainfall, the release of excess water from the Naviluteertha dam into Malaprabha river had caused flooding in and around Konnur.

Due to this, two transformers connected to the 11000-KV high tension line had submerged.

Upon realising this, Manjunath sprung into action and ensured the village gets water supply.

One of the transformer had to be switched off while the other needed to be switched on to restore the power supply to the pump house.

However, such acts come with its own risk and in one such incident a lineman lost his life.

A lineman of Bangalore Electricity Supply Company Ltd (BESCOM) drowned in a lake in Tumakuru district while on a job to restore power, which got disrupted following heavy rains.

After getting information from local people, 38-year-old Mahesh Gowder left for rectification work of a faulty F6 Jenigarahalli feeder at Bidare in Gubbi taluk on Saturday, according to BESCOM. To reach the pole point, he had to swim in the Tippur lake, but drowned on the way.