NEW DELHI: Another spell of heavy rains, the second in four days, submerged many areas in waist-deep water and brought traffic to a standstill in the national capital on Wednesday. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) said the rains covered most parts of Delhi and the adjoining areas of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.
The Safdarjung Observatory, which provides representative figures for the city, recorded 67.6 mm rainfall till 2:30 pm. It has recorded 157.4 mm rainfall so far in July, 13 per cent more than the normal of 139.1 mm.
The Palam and Lodhi Road weather stations gauged 81.2 mm and 72 mm precipitation respectively. Rainfall recorded below 15 mm is considered light, between 15 and 64.5 mm is moderate and above 64.5 mm is heavy, according to the IMD.
The Delhi Traffic Police reported snarls near the World Health Organization building, Minto Bridge and ITO among others. Residents shared pictures and videos of rainwater gushing into their houses and vehicles wading through waterlogged areas on social media platforms.
Municipal bodies reported 10 incidents of trees being uprooted due to the rains. A part of Ashoka Road in central Delhi caved in due to the downpour, while the wall of a house collapsed in the Kotla Mubarakpur area.
Earlier, the IMD had forecast widespread rainfall with "isolated heavy to very heavy rain" in Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Chandigarh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and the Union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
It had said that the rainfall intensity and distribution are very likely to decrease significantly Thursday onwards. The convergence of moist easterly winds from the Bay of Bengal and southwesterly winds from the Arabian Sea is likely to continue over northwest India for another two-three days, weather experts said.
The monsoon trough is also running through the region. They said that these two factors led to moderate to heavy rains in Delhi-NCR. Delhi had recorded moderate rainfall (24.8 mm) on Tuesday. Four persons lost their lives due to heavy rains on Sunday.