Heavy wind accompanied by flash flood of 55 kilometers an hour speed has left the capital in utter chaos affecting its transportation facilities, diverting flights, and leaving the commuters wading waist deep in water.
NEW DELHI: A spell of torrential rain has flooded the national capital of Delhi and NCR and left the municipal drainage system unable to cope with the huge amount of rainfall, rendering most of the arterial roads inaccessible for the vehicles. While the motorists were struggling to drive through the flooded flyovers, school buses stuck at different places, the kids in the area made their roads a swimming pool in flood-hit areas of Durga Vihar.
The torrential rains which saw Janakpuri getting a total of 72.5 millimeters of rain left the residents of the national capital in a state of chaos as far as transport and aviation is concerned. A total of 15 flights were diverted from the Indira Gandhi International airport due to bad weather.
Traffic jam strikes capital
As soon as the morning peak hours arrived, most of the transit routes became inaccessible owing to excessive water logging. Such was the intensity of water logging in the roads of Mahipalpur Flyover and Zakhira Underpass that vehicles started getting drowned and the people had to wade in knee-deep water. In the same way, Mehrauli Badarpur Road and Sangam Vihar experienced water logging, where people found themselves getting stuck in traffic for more than an hour on roads leading to Saket Court and the airport.
On the other hand, the video footage of a surreal scene in which the young boys dive into the waterlogged roads in South Delhi’s Durga Vihar, which seems like making the roads into a swimming pool came into the light. People commuting via these flooded roads were seen driving slowly past the kids playing in the flooded roads.
NCR areas suffer
Not just the cities, but the suburban NCR areas also faced the problem of infrastructure failure. The Gurugram faced the major trouble of the infrastructure failure as most of the arterial roads like Delhi-Gurugram Expressway (NH-48), Subhash Chowk, and Golf Course Extension Road became completely unusable for the vehicles, stranding a number of school buses carrying the children in them.
Similar traffic problems prevailed in the region of Ghaziabad and Noida under the underpass of Industrial Area on NH-9 due to water rising at which point motorists had to park and wait until the water recedes.
Desilting Solution Isn’t the Right Approach
Once again, the anger of the monsoon season is putting a harsh light on the civic administration. Despite recent declarations made by the municipal authority stating that more than 90% of the storm water drainage system had been desilted before the onset of the monsoon, markets such as Sadar Bazar have faced the problem of overflowing water from rain into shops causing damage to the goods prior to pumping them out. Municipal authorities claimed that there are temporary pumping stations operating in the most vulnerable areas to remove the excess water.
IMD has issued warnings in the coming 24 hours in regions such as Gurugram, Faridabad, and Delhi.
