An 18-year-old youth was killed while five of his family members sustained injuries after a wall of their house collapsed in north-east Delhi’s Gokulpuri early on Wednesday, crushing them under the rubble.
The incident happenedduring the dust storm. The deceased was identified as Sohail. The police said the wall collapsed as the winds were strong, and the house was very old and had not been repaired for a long time.
The police said that the matter came to fore around 3 a.m., when they received a PCR call from a man informing about the incident. A team was rushed to the spot. The rescue operation continued for half an hour after which everyone was pulled out and taken to the hospital where one of them was declared brought dead.
Traffic police on alert
Meanwhile, the police told that during the dust storm, around 53 PCR calls related to falling of trees were received across the city. “Six calls regarding fallen poles were also received. We managed to clear 37 trees from the road by afternoon. The traffic police have been ordered to be vigil and inform the control room in case of any traffic disruption due to tree falling,” said a senior police officer.
The IMD issued a warning for the next 72 hours anticipating similar weather conditions across large parts of north India including Delhi. The warning bulletin issued on Wednesday morning stated, “Thunderstorm accompanied with gusty winds [with speed 50-70 km] is very likely at isolated places over Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh.”
The maximum temperature for the day was recorded at 40.2 degrees Celsius which is normal for this time of the year and the minimum was recorded at 25 degrees Celsius which was one degree below normal. The Safdarjung weather station received 0.2 mm of rainfall.
The city forecast reads “partly cloudy sky with rain/thundershowers with strong gusty winds towards the evening. Maximum and minimum temperatures are likely to hover between 26 and 41 degrees Celsius.
