TIRUPATI: Untimely rain once again lashed out the temple town, bringing normal life to a standstill for about an hour on Wednesday.
Rain accompanied by strong gales uprooted several trees, even electricity poles, in some parts of the town, and also displaced several hoardings.
As usual, low lying areas were inundated due to the downpour, causing inconvenience to local residents. Though the unseasonal rain in the very beginning of the summer brought cheers to the people, the strong wind and thunderstorm caught them unawares.
Meanwhile, lightning struck the surroundings of the Tirupati airport on Tuesday evening following a heavy rain, causing damage to the ground navigational wires of Doppler Very High Frequency Omnidirectional Range (DVOR).
This resulted in the diversion of a Spice Jet flight (Hyderabad to Tirupati), scheduled to land in Tirupati airport by 8.30 am, to Chennai. After making a few rounds over the airport, the flight went to Chennai after it failed to receive a signal from the airport officials due to a technical error.
When contacted, Tirupati airport director V V Rao said that the thunderstorm on Tuesday evening, caused damage to the DVOR, resulting in the diversion of the Spice Jet flight to Chennai. “However, the engineers concerned identified and restored the problem the next morning. Except the Spice Jet flight, all the remaining flights operations were on time,” he added.