12july 1961.... The Day when Pune got Drenched

Pune was in 1960 a small but efficiently laid out city and most of the population resided near river bank..
A new dam was built near Panshet, also called Tanajisagar Dam near Velhe on river Ambi which then merges into Mutha and then Mula-Mutha..
Back then it was just a regular hamlet and as even now the old locals say that the dam was doomed from the start...
The day the foundation was laid the dam was stuck with obstatcles but the builders went ahead with it anyway...
The reservoir had a capacity of 2.70 million m3 and that year the recorded rain was 1778 mm just in span of 24days and the still infant dam couldn’t take that much load and it spilled...
The culprit was a small crack in the still developing dam and of course inadequate provision of the outlet facility during emergency. This caused collapse of the structure above the outlets.
Army help was called for and our brave Jawans tried their level best to stem the flow but as an old sanskrit saying goes,"when nature decides to destruct, nothing can stop it"
Insistent rain broke the dam and Khadakwasla Dam was also devastated process which added huge amounts of water to an obscene level…
Meanwhile, innocent of all these happenings, few Puneites flocked the banks and bridges to watch the rapidly rising water level...
Dam broke early in the morning and in few hours it reached the city and people began to panic, while some scoffed it in true, typical Pune fashion.
The rapidly rising water shook their calm though and the panic ensued..
People rushed to relatives in city who lived on higher ground or left Pune entirely..
All the bridges were drowned except Bund Garden Bridge which is situated on a bit higher level..
The old Peths by now were totally submerged and the destructive water even slithered towards Deccan Gymkhana and Karve rd…
The Panic was horrible...
The belongings gone for which the people had toiled hard for and the homes built with so care and affection filled with debris and empty…
Families broke apart and children lost…
Rumors were as free flowing as the water and consumed everyone.
People were left with nothing but fear and everlasting images of water taking everything…
The engineer who was overlooking the dam construction was so upset that he tried committing suicide…
City’s all old markers who stood so proudly carrying a beacon of rich Maratha history now looked pitiful under the onslaught of mud and water…
But as they say that form chaos emerges the order…
The ordinary people with forgettable faces and unmemorable names carried the mantle of heroes as they took in strangers just because they were compatriots.
Many joined the search team with Jawans not because they had lost someone but only for the sake of helping…
Eventually the water subsided and many were left homeless as they couldn't even find their homes in the ruckus but who had their homes opened them for others…
When the flood-waters receded, they left behind a trail of destruction and a muddy mess. The cleanup and rebuilding took many months. The old riverside city landscape changed forever. New localities like Lokmanya Nagar, Gokhale Nagar were setup to rehabilitate some of the flood affected citizens.
Most of the bridges were damaged and needed fixing and in some cases complete rebuilding. With Khadakwasla and Panshet dams were completely drained, there was no water supply for the city. The Peshwa era Katraj water aqueduct was used to meet some water requirements.
The Wadas with well stuck a “paati” outside the door claiming water available…
Today the flood markers still are displayed in true Puneri spirit, that yes we were flooded but we survived…
 Mumbai has a spirit… True… In tragedies they still continue their lives but here in aamcha Pune we display it proudly like a true Peshwas that we are…
So cheers for Pune who survived a murderous flood and made it into proud, bragging tea conversation... Interestingly, exact 200 years ago on 12 july, 1761 Third battle of Panipat had occured in which the Beloved Wishwasrao Peshwa from Pune had fought valiantly and died, changing Pune’s history…