Several incidents of waterlogging were reported from across the city and traffic came to a standstill after heavy rain lashed the Capital on Sunday afternoon.
Commuters were seen wading though waist-deep water on several stretches along the Ring Road between Kashmere Gate and the Pragati Maidan crossing, with many roads resembling gushing streams.
The city received 49.2 mm of rainfall between 9 a.m. and 5.30 p.m. on Sunday that makes it the heaviest downpour this monsoon so far. In the first half of July, due to a delay in the arrival of monsoon, the Capital had witnessed a rainfall deficit. However, with forecast of rain for the next week, the city could make up for the dry spell in the first half of the month.
The Met office has forecast generally cloudy skies for Monday with the possibility of light rain/thundershowers. Generally cloudy sky and light rain has also been forecast for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
Although the showers on Sunday brought down temperatures in the evening, it was hot and humid during the day with a maximum of 36.5 degrees Celsius and a minimum of 26.8 degrees Celsius.
The Delhi traffic police said it received 25 calls related to waterlogging. Most of these calls were reported from areas like Madhuban Chowk, W-Point to Mandi House, Moti Nagar, the department said. A call regarding a road cave-in at Vasant Kunj was also received, following which a traffic policeman was deployed and necessary diversion was put in place to avoid any untoward incident.
A traffic police officer said that they have an emergency response team to be deployed at traffic lights which gets dysfunctional when it rains. “We have promptly posted traffic-related updates on the social media for the convenience of motorists. We coordinated with civic agencies to clear waterlogging at the earliest to ensure smooth flow of traffic,” said the officer.
