Drained of all hope, NCR cities left to sink or swim This year, 80% of Delhi’s rain came in just 11 days
WATER WORLD Civic deficiencies to the fore as rain wreaks havoc; Gurugram underpass disappears
NEW DELHI/GURUGRAM: Roads turned into lakes, homes were flooded, walls fell, and a sea of traffic was marooned in several parts of the national capital region (NCR) on Wednesday after heavy rains exposed, yet again, the fragile state of the civic infrastructure and the lack of preparedness for a season that exposes such flaws every year.
The flooding was particularly severe in Gurugram, where underpasses in some of the city’s most upscale neighbourhoods resembled a river, forcing at least two motorists to escape from their drowning cars and swim to safety, and rafts to be deployed.
In Delhi, traffic backed up for several kilometres on arterial stretches on the Ring Road – especially at Ashram, Dhaula Kuan and near AIIMS – while access roads to the airport accumulated waist-deep waters. In several parts of the town, the water logging disabled cars and buses that exacerbated the jams.
“Portions of roads were completely submerged in water, which slowed down vehicular movement on arterial stretches. Our officials were stationed to direct traffic, but in many areas, the situation was quite bad,” said a senior Delhi traffic police official, asking not to be named.
The flooding also affected people who were at home. In residential colonies such as Krishna Nagar, Amar Colony, Model Town, Prem Nagar in Kirari, Sant Nagar and Laxmi Vihar in Burari, water entered the ground floor of several homes.
“It doesn’t look like we are living in the Capital. Every year we have to experience this pain of water logging. It’s been raining since morning and the streets of colonies are completely submerged in water. It’s because of choked drains and sewer lines. Agencies keep blaming each other but it’s the public that suffers,” said BS Vohra, a resident of Krishna Nagar and the president, East Delhi RWAS Joint Front.
Civic bodies reported uprooted trees in a several areas and seven cars were damaged after the boundary wall of a school in the Saket’s J block collapsed. The Minto Road underbridge, which has become a symbol of the Delhi’s vulnerability to rain, however, had unexpectedly little water.
The trigger for the chaos was 43mm of rain (average across five stations) that poured on Delhi between 8.30am and 5.30pm. Gurugram recorded 118mm of rain, close to 20% of the precipitation seen on an average in an entire year. Rainfall recorded below 15mm is considered light, 15-64.5mm is moderate and above 64.5mm is heavy.
Weather officials said the rains are being caused by two low pressure bands over northwest and central India: the first is the monsoon trough, and the second due to cyclonic circulations over Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh.
“A low pressure area has formed and the monsoon trough is also near its normal position. A lot of rain is expected over central and NW India because of these two conditions,” said RK Jenamani, senior scientist, IMD.
Moderate to heavy rain is likely in NCR on Thursday. Central India may get similar conditions for 3-4 days. For Delhi, Wednesday’s rain is likely to make up for the 14% cumulative rainfall deficit this season.
The national capital, however, fared better than its neighbour. In addition to the Golf Course Road underpasses (they are a network of three), four others – two each in Cyber City and along the Delhi-gurgaon expressway – were flooded and had to be closed for traffic.
In an interview to HT during the monsoon in 2019, Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar said Gurugram’s monsoon flooding problem had “been taken care of”.
“All underpasses have been completed. The drainage system has been upgraded in areas that were waterlogged last time and led to Gurugram being branded as ‘Gurujam’. To further mitigate the problem, we will be building check dams in the surrounding Aravalli hills and create artificial lakes. That will not only stop the rush of rainwater to Gurugram but also recharge the groundwater. The plan is to develop some of the lakes as tourist gardens,” he said
Municipal Corporation of Gurugram chief engineer Raman Sharma said the level of rainwater at Najafgarh drain was “extremely high”, and, as a result, a large portion of Gurugram’s main drain -- the Badshahpur drain -- flowed back on to the roads, leaving the city without any storm water outlet.
“The volume of rain was much higher than usual as a result of which there was severe waterlogging across the city. We initiated combating measures as soon as rains started and in most parts of the city, and by 6pm, barring low-lying areas, rainwater was cleared. More than 150 GMDA (Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority) and MCG officials are still on-ground and efforts are ongoing for clearing rainwater from remaining areas by midnight,” said Sharma.
One person, who misjudged the amount of water as he drove into the underpass along the Golf Course Road in his Hyundai hatchback, said he got out as the vehicle began drowning. “When I reached the middle of the underpass, I found myself submerged in water. The engine stopped, the brakes stopped working and I feared the automatic system might get stuck, so I immediately rushed out of the car and had to swim to cross the stretch,” said Amit Kumar, a resident of MG Road.
“We started drainage operations around 11am. The underpasses at IFFCO Chowk, Cyberhub, Genpact Chowk were cleared by 4pm while the underpass at Rajiv Chowk was cleared by 5pm. The underpass at Bristol Chowk we are aiming to clear by 7pm. At the underpass in DLF Phase 1, the level of rainwater is extremely high. More than 5 crore kilolitres of rainwater has accumulated and it may take us till tomorrow to clear it,” said Satyawan Samriwal, the assistant divisional fire official in Gurugram.
With Covid-19 having forced most office-goers, particularly in the IT hub of Gurugram, to work from home, people said the chaos wrought by the rains may have led to scenes similar to what is now known as the Guru-jam of 2016. Heavy rain drowned several main intersections and arterial roads at the time, stranding commuters for as long as 20 hours.
NEW DELHI: Between 8.30am and 5.30pm on Wednesday, Delhi’s five weather stations — Safdarjung (32mm), Palam (49mm), Lodhi Road (25mm), Ridge (43mm) and Ayanagar (66mm); received an average of 43 mm of rain. The rainfall was the highest in this monsoon season at the Ayanagar station. Safdarjung (68mm), Palam (81mm)and Lodhi road (72mm) recorded the maximum rainfall on July 23, while Ridge (86mm) experienced its highest rainfall so far on July 21.
Wednesday’s rain, apart from causing traffic jams around the city, and water logging in many parts, is likely to skew an interesting trend a bit more: An HT analysis of the India Meteorological Department’s (IMD) gridded dataset up to August 18 shows that Delhi received 80% of its total monsoon rain till Tuesday in just 11 days. The gridded database works with a one day time lag. So, rainfall after 8.30am on August 19 will reflect in the data only on August 20.
This is in keeping with a trend that has become evident even at the national level -- an uneven distribution of the monsoon rainfall, with lots of rain falling on a few days.
Keeping August 19 aside, just four days -- August 13, July 19, July 5 and July 23 -- account for almost half of the monsoon rain this year in the capital. And 19.4% of Delhi’s total monsoon rainfall (till Tuesday) happened on August 13. Once rainfall numbers for August 19 become available, the rainfall distribution might become even more skewed. This data will be available only on Thursday.
The station-wise data cannot be compared with the data in this analysis because the gridded data set calculates average rainfall for Delhi in its entirety, spread over two grids of 0.25 degrees longitude and latitude each, and is not a simple average of the rainfall at individual stations.
(See Chart 1)
IMD counts the period from June 1 to September 30 as the monsoon season. This year, 50 days since June 1 have seen rains in Delhi. Due to these recent spells of rain, Delhi’s cumulative rainfall deficit is now within the normal range, according to IMD’S rainfall statistics for August 18. The cumulative monsoon rainfall deficit in Delhi on August 18 was 14%. A departure from the longer period average of -19% to 19% is considered normal.
(See Chart 2)
An analysis of IMD’S gridded rainfall data set shows cumulative rainfall deficit in Delhi has been moving towards the normal range as the monsoon season has progressed. Delhi is approximated by two grids in the gridded data set. A grid is a box bound by two latitudes and longitudes 0.25 degrees apart. The cumulative rainfall deficit was largely in the 30% to 50% range from mid-june to the end of July. In August, the deficit has stayed more in the 20% to 30% range. This will come down after Wednesday’s rainfall statistics are published. To be sure, before June 15, Delhi was less rain deficient than it is now. However, there was a long gap after the early monsoon rains and rainfall picking up again.