As man drowns, waterlogged Prahladpur underpass draws parity with Minto Bridge
HT Correspondent
NEW DELHI: An unidentified man, in his 40s, drowned in the flooded Pul Prahladpur railway underpass on Monday evening, the police said on Tuesday. This is the second such instance at the underpass which connects Badarpur with Mehrauli and Gurugram.
Last year on July 19, a 27-yearold man drowned while taking a selfie when the underpass was flooded with rainwater. The frequent flooding of the underpass has also drawn comparisons with the Minto Road rail underbridge in central Delhi which used to be inundated every year during monsoon.
Two deaths were reported after an intense squall caused widespread damage on Monday evening. With the drowning incident, the toll due to the weather calamity now stands at three.
Deputy commissioner of police (south-east) Esha Pandey said the police control room received a call at 10.22pm that a man walked into the waterlogged underpass and drowned. She said that a team from the Pul Prahladpur police station rushed to the spot.
“Fire brigade and emergency rescue team were also called to the spot. Divers from the rescue team fished out the dead body after searching for half an hour,” said Pandey.
The man’s identity was yet to be ascertained and his body has been preserved at the mortuary of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).
For years, the only solution that the authorities implemented at the Minto Bridge was to barricade it for traffic. Despite this, a DTC bus trapped in the flooded rail underbridge remained the most iconic monsoon images in the capital since the 1950s. For the last at least five years, the Pul Prahladpur underpass has joined the list of regular inundated areas in the capital during rains.
The Delhi government last year took several measures to prevent flooding at the Minto Bridge. However, Pul Prahladpur awaits similar intervention.
On Monday, around 5.30pm, the Delhi Police issued an alert on Twitter saying that traffic was affected on MB Road due to waterlogging at the Pul Prahladpur railway underpass, and directed motorists to avoid the stretch.
Vehicular movement was restored early Tuesday after authorities cleared the water with the help of additional pumps.
Police said that the underpass was closed for all movement soon after the rain and thunderstorm started around 4.30 pm on Monday. The roads leading to the underpass were barricaded and on both Badarpur and Pul Prahladpur side. Apart from the local police, traffic police personnel and employees of Delhi Jal Board (DJB) as well as Public Works Department (PWD) were deployed to monitor the water logging situation in the underpass and prevent anyone from going into the inundated area, local shopkeepers said.
“After barricading the roads, the policemen asked us to shut out shops and leave. They did not want anyone coming close to the waterlogged area. We left around 5 pm. When we came around 6 am on Tuesday, we learnt that a man had drowned in the waterlogged underpass. It seems that he may have entered the underpass through one of the unmanned entry points from Pul Prahladpur side,” said Ram Babu, who runs a tea kiosk near the underpass.
A senior Public Works Department (PWD) official said that the topography of the area and unplanned development of unauthorised colonies in its catchment region makes Pul Prahladpur vulnerable to waterlogging. “This region is shaped like a saucer and a large number of unauthorised colonies have come up in its vicinity from where the entire run-off comes to this location. The unauthorised colonies do not have adequate drainage. Besides topography of the region, there is also a sewage line running along this site which backflows during rain dumping the rainwater near the underpass,” the official said.
Last year, a report by PWD identified Pul Prahladpur as one of the seven most waterlogging prone areas in the city.
Another PWD official said seven CCTV cameras were installed on the location, and during monsoon season 24X7 monitoring of the site is carried out. “The footage from the site will be used to assess the incident on Monday,” the official said.
The official said that the area was barricaded, and the person who drowned on Monday may have taken an “alternative route”.