Downpour brings Delhi to its knees again
NEW DELHI: Just around three hours of rain on Wednesday morning threw the city into disarray, with prolonged snarls throughout the day made worse by at least five cave-ins and waterlogging on major arterial roads, leading to traffic being diverted, forming bottlenecks across the national capital. The downpour left several residential areas flooded, with the city’s agencies getting into yet another blame game, days after Delhi witnessed waterlogging after the first heavy rain spell on Sunday.
The Capital in the last four days alone has recorded 120mm of rain. IMD data shows that between July 1 and July 20, Delhi received 124.9mm rainfall. Till July 19, Delhi had a rainfall deficit of 47%, which went down to 29% till Tuesday.
In the heart of the Capital, a section of Ashoka Road caved-in, causing a 10-feet fissure, forcing Delhi traffic police to cordon the stretch off and divert traffic. Vehicles had to be stopped on the stretch between the Windsor Place and Jaswant Singh roundabouts. A New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) official said, “The area around it has been cordoned off, and an NDMC engineering team is working on site to repair the sewer line and road.”
Portions of roads also caved-in on the Mahipalpur bypass and the link road near Nawada metro station on Wednesday because of waterlogging. Traffic between Vasant Kunj and Mahipalpur was affected because of the cave-in on Mahipalpur bypass.