At least two employees of a private bank -a manager and a cashier-- were killed after their SUV was submerged in water at a flooded underpass in Haryana's Faridabad on Friday (January 13). Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR) have been witnessing incessant rainfall for the past two days, due to which several roads and underpasses are inundated.
The incident happened at the Old Faridabad Railway underpass, when victims Punyashray Sharma (48) and Viraj Dwivedi (26), were returning home in Greater Faridabad from Gurugram in their sports utility vehicle.
According to police, Sharma, who was the manager of HDFC Bank's branch in Gurugram's Sector 31 and Dwivedi, who was a cashier there saw that the underpass was flooded but failed to gauge how high the water was. " At around 11:50 pm, an XUV 700 entered the underpass, ignoring all warnings and got stuck in the deep floodwater, following which water gushed into the vehicle," police said, as per a PTI report.
Passers-by attempted to help the duo stuck in the car and after a lot of efforts, managed to get them out but Viraj died on the spot. Sharma was taken to the Badshah Khan Civil Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, police said.
"Their families have been informed. We will hand over the bodies to the next of kin after post-mortem examinations," Inspector Samer Singh, SHO of the NIT Faridabad police station, said.
Delhi has exceeded both its annual and seasonal average rainfall in the early days of September, with total rainfall crossing the 1,000 mm mark—well above the normal level after intermittent showers over the past two days. The IMD has highlighted that the expected impacts of rain over Delhi-NCR include localised flooding of roads, waterlogging in low-lying areas and the closure of underpasses, along with occasional reductions in visibility due to heavy rainfall.