The first bout of heavy monsoon rains wreaked havoc in residential and commercial areas of Delhi on Saturday, with flooded roads and overflowing drains leading to massive waterlogging and paralyzing traffic for hours.
The Safdarjung observatory, the city’s main meteorological station, recorded 126.1 mm of rainfall between 8:30 am and 5:30 pm.
According to Delhi government officials, the city received more than 100 mm of rain in a single day, which is 15 percent of the total rainfall that falls every monsoon. This amount of water cannot be released as long as it is still raining, they said, adding that once the rain stops, the water will clear quickly.
The morning rain, which continued for several hours, led to water gushing into the warehouses of the city’s most popular shopping destination, Connaught Place, and the Minto Bridge underpass was closed to traffic due to waterlogging.
The mess caused by the rain also exposed preparations by various civic bodies ahead of September when six G20 summits, including the summit, are scheduled to be held in the national capital.
Motorists and pedestrians struggled to navigate waterlogged roads, flyovers and footpaths, while traders in several areas struggled to stop rainwater from entering their shops.
This was the first heavy rain of the season. An “orange” alert was issued for Saturday and a “yellow” alert was issued for Sunday, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.
The Department of Transportation received 56 calls regarding waterlogging, six downed trees and five potholes.
“Due to very heavy rainfall in #NDMC and adjoining areas today between 12:00 PM and 2:30 PM, all major drains are running at full discharge capacity resulting in excess water flowing onto roads. NDMC officials are working tirelessly to , so that everything will be back to normal as soon as possible.” “, he tweeted.
In a statement, the Delhi Traffic Police said that calls regarding traffic jams, failure of traffic signals and waterlogging as well as uprooting of trees and potholes on the roads were received at the control room.
Power outages were also reported from many parts of the city, which resulted in non-functioning signaling and staffing of intersections with signaling by traffic personnel.
Messages were flashed at the control room to all traffic police to mobilize maximum number of personnel, motorcycle patrol teams and cranes in the field to ensure manual traffic regulation at intersections where there was no power, remove crashed vehicles, uprooted trees and restore normal traffic, the statement said.
The messages through the traffic control room were also sent to the control rooms of other civic agencies like NDMC, PWD and MCD horticulture departments.
Fallen tree branches were removed from sidewalks and medians, and traffic flow was managed as best as possible. Operations are still ongoing, the statement said.
The Department of Public Works (OZP) received 100 complaints about waterlogging. Minto Road was closed for vehicular traffic for half an hour due to overflowing of Delhi Jal Board (DJB) canal.
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