New Delhi, May 2: An intense storm with heavy early-morning rain hit Delhi on Friday, causing a house collapse that killed a woman and her three children and delaying more than 200 flights, even as the city grappled with widespread waterlogging, raising concerns over the monsoon preparedness of government and civic agencies.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) said this was the second-highest 24-hour spell of rain witnessed by the national capital in May since 1901.
Authorities received around 300 complaints regarding uprooted trees and branches falling as the storm, with a wind speed of 80 kilometres per hour, hit Delhi in the early hours, damaging several vehicles.
Visuals from different areas showed uprooted trees and people stuck in waterlogged roads.
Waterlogging was reported from across the city, with persistent issues at notorious stretches, such as Minto Road, ITO, Dhaula Kuan, Indraprastha, Ring Road, R K Puram, Lakshmi Nagar, South Extension and Chirag Dilli.
The torrential rain was caused by moisture and wind convergence over the region, fed by both the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, the weather department said.
According to data from the IMD, Safdarjung, Delhi’s main weather station, recorded 77 mm of rain in just six hours, between 2:30 am and 8:30 am, the second highest in four years.
Other areas also saw significant rainfall, with Lodhi Road receiving 78 mm, Pragati Maidan and Pitampura 71.5 mm each, Ridge 59.2 mm, Pusa 50 mm, Palam 45.6 mm, Najafgarh 40 mm, Ayanagar 39.4 mm and Jaffarpur 67.5 mm.
The weather office has forecast a cloudy sky, with the possibility of rain or thunderstorms for the next six days.
On Friday, videos surfaced on social media of half-submerged vehicles wading through Minto Road.
The IMD has issued a “red” alert, urging people to remain extremely vigilant and take necessary precautions.
Three children and their mother died after a tree fell on their house, causing it to collapse.
“We received a call regarding a house collapse in Kharkhari Nahar village in Najafgarh at 5:25 am. We deployed multiple teams on the spot and four people were rescued from the rubble,” a Delhi Fire Services (DFS) official said.
They were rushed to a nearby hospital, where they were declared dead, he added.
The deceased have been identified as Jyoti (28) and her children — Aryan (7), Rishabh (5) and Priyansh (7 months). Jyoti’s husband, Ajay (30), sustained minor injuries in his chest and wrist.
In a post on X, Chief Minister Rekha Gupta said her government has sanctioned an ex-gratia amount of Rs 25 lakh for the next of kin of the deceased.
“Delhi government has sanctioned Rs 25 Lakh as ex-gratia relief to Sh. Ajay, next of kin of four family members who lost their lives today in a tragic incident caused by heavy rain and storm in Village Kharkhari, Najafgarh,” Gupta said.
A 25-year-old man was electrocuted to death after he came in contact with an iron gate that was electrically charged due to a overhead wire that snapped in southwest Delhi’s Green Park area.
The victim was identified as Ankit, who worked as a labourer at a construction site, a senior police officer said, adding that the incident was reported at 6:55 am.
“We rushed him to a hospital, where he was declared dead,” the officer said.
She added that an FIR has been registered against unidentified people under sections 290 (negligent conduct with respect to pulling down, repairing or constructing buildings etc.) and 106(1) (punishment for causing death by negligence, but not amounting to culpable homicide) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), and further investigation is underway.
Six people, including a four-year-old boy, were injured in rain-related incidents.
A wall collapse in Paparawat village, near Prahlad Mandir, Chhawla, led to injuries to three people. The wall that reportedly belonged to a neighbouring property collapsed, trapping Omprakash (41), his 13-year-old son Love and Saurabh (15), who lives in the neighbourhood, under the debris.
The four-year-old boy was injured after a chunk of cement from the roof fell on him at New Ashok Nagar.
A large neem tree fell on a car in south Delhi’s Sheikh Sarai area, while its uprooted roots lifted another car. The fallen tree also damaged a house, breaking off a corner of the structure. Additionally, the top part of the tree became lodged against the second floor of an adjacent building.
Three flights were diverted and more than 200 delayed at the Delhi airport in the morning as thunderstorms and gusty winds disrupted operations.
An official said two flights that were to land at the airport were diverted to Jaipur and one was sent to Ahmedabad.
More than 200 flights were delayed, according to data from flight-tracking website Flightradar24.com.
The Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL), which operates the airport, in a post on X at 5:20 am said some flights were affected owing to inclement weather conditions.
The widespread waterlogging exposed the preparedness of the government and civic bodies that have claimed that there would be no waterlogging in the national capital in the upcoming monsoon season.
PWD Minister Parvesh Verma had said last month that the Delhi government is working in mission mode to ensure that there is no waterlogging in monsoon.
Gupta inspected a waterlogged road stretch in the Majnu Ka Tila area, while Verma went to the Minto Bridge area to take stock of the situation.
“Waterlogging continues to be a concern across various parts of Delhi due to choked drains and pothole-ridden roads. Officials have been instructed to immediately identify all such vulnerable spots in the city that are prone to waterlogging,” the chief minister said.
As residents waded through flooded streets and disruptions mounted, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) blamed the BJP’s “four-engine” government for civic failure, while the chief minister called the downpour a much-needed “wake-up call” for the capital’s broken systems.
“I want to thank god for this untimely rain today, which is an alarm for the whole system. This is not a one-day problem but an issue of backlog of development, system breakdowns and apathy of administration in Delhi in the past 10-15 years,” Gupta said.
Addressing a press conference, the AAP’s Delhi unit chief Saurabh Bharadwaj said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) controls the city’s various civic agencies and it cannot escape responsibility.
“Today, Delhi saw its first rainfall and the entire city is submerged. Roads, underground, colonies, everything is waterlogged. This is the reality of the four-engine BJP government,” Bharadwaj said, in a reference to the saffron party being in power at the Centre, in the national capital and in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) as well as the local MP being from the party.
The BJP controls the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), Delhi Development Authority (DDA), Public Works Department (PWD) and MCD, Bharadwaj said, adding, “No more excuses. All agencies, whether under the Centre or the state, are now controlled by the BJP.”
Former chief minister Atishi posted videos of waterlogging in the Dhaula Kuan and ITO areas on X.
“Is this what the people of Delhi expected from the 4-engine BJP govt?” she asked in a post on the microblogging platform.
The DFS received around 70 calls of rain-related incidents during the three-four hours of storm and heavy showers.
The PWD said it received 180 complaints of waterlogging and added that 150 quick response teams were deployed to clear the accumulated water from road stretches and address other problems.
From the Lutyens’ Delhi area, 25 complaints related to uprooted trees and 12 regarding waterlogging were received.
The MCD received 53 complaints of fallen trees, the NDMC was alerted about 24 such incidents, while the PWD reported getting at least 200 complaints regarding uprooted trees or fallen branches.
Experts blame a rampant concretisation of tree bases for the trees’ fragility.
“The cement around the base of a tree causes the tree to fall. It blocks water and air from reaching the roots and prevents the trunk from expanding,” said Verhaen Khanna, a Delhi-based environmentalist.
Commuters, including office goers and school children, were stuck in the slow-moving traffic due to the rain.
The temperature in the national capital dipped 10 notches below normal because of the early-morning rain, settling at 29.1 degrees Celsius — the lowest for the month in the last two years.
Narendra Girsa, the councillor from Dwarka’s Nasirpur area, said an MCD school in the locality was flooded after the rain.
He said the school was built on a lower ground level, while the surrounding areas are elevated, which caused rainwater to flow into the school premises. (PTI)
