NEW DELHI: Delhi witnessed the heaviest spell of rains this monsoon season on Thursday, providing much-required relief from hot and humid conditions. However, the heavy rainfall overnight and in the morning also inundated the low-lying areas and threw traffic out of gear at several places in the city.
The rain which began on Wednesday night continued until Thursday morning.
According to weather forecasting agency Skymet, Delhi recorded the heaviest rainfall in this monsoon season so far with Palam recording a rainfall of 94 mm. The rainfall helped Delhi to improve its monsoon status to ‘Normal’ category.
Before this spell of rain, the Safdarjung Observatory, which provides representative figures for the city, has recorded just 31.1 mm rainfall in August so far against the normal of 109.6 mm, a deficiency of 72 per cent.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has also predicted ‘light to moderate intensity rain’ for several areas adjoining Delhi including Noida, Greater Noida, Gurugram and Ghaziabad.
According to Kuldeep Srivastava, head, regional weather forecasting centre, heavy rains are expected in parts of NCR for the next two days.
“The factor for rainfall in the city continues to be the same—monsoon trough which is running close to Delhi and southwesterly winds are bringing moisture to the region. We can expect heavy rains in parts of NCR for the next two days. But in Delhi there will be light to moderate rains,” he added.
Three people were trapped under debris at the Bhalaswa landfill after a part of it slid down due to heavy rains, the civic body mayor said on Thursday.
North Delhi Municipal Corporation officials said that a part of the mound that on the lower portion slid and three people got swamped under it.
“It seems 3 rag-pickers were buried in the slide at Bhalswa. They were all taken to the hospital. Two have already been discharged,” said an official from the civic body.
AAP, BJP play blame game
The waterlogging caused by heavy rains in certain parts of the national capital once again triggered a blame game between Aam Aadmi Party and BJP. Former BJP State president Manoj Tiwari on Thursday said that the government was in charge of most drainage networks and not the civic bodies. Out of the 3,737km drainage network in the city, 2,588km is with Delhi govt, he tweeted.
Meanwhile, the civic bodies claimed that de-silting work was over in most drains and the overflowing ones are under the jurisdiction of the Delhi government. Reacting to these claims, AAP said that the BJP-ruled MCDs are responsible for the cleaning of 98 percent drains in the city.
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