Delhi rain: 5 dead, power cuts, water supply disruption add to chaos
NEW DELHI, JUN 29: Delhi woke up to light rain on Saturday, a day after the national capital received the highest rainfall in a single day in June in 88 years, bringing the city to a grinding halt. With the monsoon arriving in the capital, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has predicted light to moderate rainfall over the next five days, with parts of Delhi likely to witness heavy showers till July 1.
Several parts of the city continue to be waterlogged and many areas experienced prolonged power cuts as Delhi recorded 228.1 mm of rainfall in 24 hours on Friday. At least five people have died in rain-related incidents in Delhi, including two children who drowned in a rainwater-filled ditch.
For Saturday, IMD has forecast thunderstorms with light to moderate intensity rain over parts of Delhi-NCR, including Dwarka, Palam, Vasant Vihar, Vasant Kunj, Gurgaon, Faridabad, Manesar.
Two boys, aged eight and 10 years, drowned while they were playing in a rainwater-filled ditch in Delhi’s New Usmanpur area on Friday evening. In another incident, an man drowned at a flooded underpass in Shalimar Bagh area.
Meanwhile, the bodies of two of the three labourers trapped under the debris of an under-construction wall that collapsed in Vasant Vihar were taken out by rescue personnel. The search for the other labourer is underway.
In a double whammy, water supply in several areas in Delhi has been affected due to a fault at the Chandrawal WW-II pump house following heavy rain. The Delhi Jal Board said the disruption in water supply will persist on Saturday too.
Terminal-1 of Delhi airport will remain closed on Saturday, a day after a portion of a canopy collapsed, killing one person and injuring four others. All the flight movements have been shifted to Terminal-2 and Terminal-3.
The heavy rain also led to trees getting uprooted in many areas, causing damage to properties and cars parked in residential areas. In many residential areas, locals had to wade through waist-deep water to leave their homes.
In Delhi’s Kishanganj, passengers stuck inside a bus under a flooded underpass were rescued by police and rescue teams. Visuals showed rescue personnel, wearing life jackets, wading through the water to take out the passengers.
The Delhi government has set up a 24-hour control room to monitor the waterlogging situation, minister Saurabh Bharadwaj has announced.
The MCD and PWD have installed mobile pumps in many areas to pump out water. Quick response teams have been formed to address waterlogging complaints.
Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena also took stock of the situation and directed officials to set up an emergency control room and deploy static pumps to address waterlogging.
The IMD said multiple large-scale monsoonal weather systems, supported by thermodynamic instability in the atmosphere, resulted in intense thunderstorms and heavy rain over Delhi on Friday.
-PTI
