n Heavy rain lashed parts of Delhi-NCR, including Gurugram and Noida, on Wednesday afternoon leading to severe waterlogging on streets, roads and traffic congestion in several places in the Capital city. Huge traffic snarls were seen in parts of Delhi, including in South, Central, North, New Delhi and parts of Noida and Gurugram.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued a yellow alert for the city. A yellow alert denotes bad weather and the possibility of the weather conditions worsening and disrupting daily life. Heavy waterlogging in various parts of Delhi left arterial junctions choked amid the traffic police issuing advisory to the commuters who were caught in prolonged traffic jams.
In the past 24 hours till 8 am on Wednesday, city’s primary weather station Safdarjung received 0.8 mm of rainfall, Lodi road 1.4 mm of rainfall, Narela 16 mm of rainfall, Palam 0.3 mm of rainfall, Ridge 0.8 mm of rainfall, Pitampura one mm of rainfall, Pusa 0.5 mm of rainfall and Mayur Vihar’s Salwan public school 0.5 mm of rainfall.
Mundka, Dhaula Kuan, Moti Bagh, Mehrauli-Badarpur road, Lajpat Nagar, Karol Bagh, Punjabi Bagh, Khanpur, ITO, Jahangirpuri, Safdarjung, Kashmere Gate ISBT and Okhla Estate were among other areas flooded after the rain causing slowdown of traffic movement with vehicles wading through knees deep water.
In a series of posts, the Delhi Traffic Police advised commuters to avoid certain routes including a traffic advisory due to severe waterlogging at Mundka, which significantly impacted traffic flow on Rohtak Road.
“Traffic is affected on Rohtak Road in the carriageway from Nangloi towards Tikri Border and vice versa due to potholes and water logging. Kindly avoid Mundka and take alternate route accordingly,” it said. Earlier, traffic was also affected on the GTK Road due to water logging as well as on Ring Road in the carriageway from Safdarjung Hospital towards Dhaula Kuan due to heavy water logging near Satya Niketan Bus Stand.
Irked by the complete collapse of civic infrastructure amid the rainy season, a commuters said, “Today, we are very frustrated with the traffic jam, and we have been stuck in a jam for over an hour while traveling from Noida to Delhi. This jam is approximately 1.5 to 2 kilometres long. Due to the jam, our fuel is burning, and pollution is increasing, but the government is not paying attention to this issue.”
Another one added that it took her approximately two hours to travel through a 14 kilometre stretch.
A commuter travelling from Haryana to Delhi said that while returning there was no traffic as such but as soon as rainfall started, huge jams were witnessed. “There was bad traffic jam in the city specially near the Kashmere Gate ISBT due to heavy waterlogging. This is an everyday affair now. To see the city’s infrastructure collapse even if light rainfall happens,” he said.
According to IMD’s 10-day forecast for Delhi, the capital will continue to witness cloudy skies and the possibility of rains and thunderstorms till September 14. The weather agency has not issued any colour alert for the rest of the week yet.
