Over 100 flights flying in and out of the city were impacted due to a dust storm, with winds gusting up to 70 kmph, that hit the Capital on Saturday evening bringing some relief to Delhiites.
The storm hampered visibility leading to operations being suspended for over an hour at Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA). Around 35 domestic flights and international flights headed towards the airport were diverted to cities nearby. As many as 66 flights were delayed, including five international ones, most of which were postponed by 90 minutes to two hours.
“Today IGIA observed this season’s most severe dust storm followed by thunderstorms with wind speed of 96 kmph between 1700-1745 p.m.,” according to IMD’s R.K. Jenamani. He added that this was the sixth such storm since April, the most number of storms in a season in a decade. These storms have led to nearly 167 flights being diverted in the season so far. The Met department said while the maximum temperature was 40.1 degrees Celsius, the minimum temperature of the day was 30 degrees Celsius.
Forecast for today
“The Palam observatory saw 23 mm of rainfall and the humidity level hovered around 80%. The forecast for tomorrow is generally cloudy sky with light rain or thundershowers accompanied with strong gutsy wind,” said a Met official.
Metro services were briefly disrupted on the Red Line and the Blue Line. “Due to the sudden dust storm and rain around 5 p.m. there were a few cases of track circuit signalling drop reported on Line 1 [Red Line] and Line 3 [Blue Line] and external object striking overhead electrification near Janakpuri East. Trains on all lines are running normal otherwise” said a Delhi Metro Rail Corporation official.
Commuters complained of traffic in the city. Complaints were received from Mehrauli Badarpur Road, Peeragarhi, Nangloi, Dhaula Kuan, Inderlok, Siri Fort and parts of east Delhi.
The police said that a total of 99 PCR calls were received regarding fallen trees, 39 regarding fallen poles and 13 reporting wall and roof collapse till 9.30 p.m.
