Heavy rainfall in Delhi brought the city to a standstill on Wednesday, and triggered a 'Red' alert for the national capital. The downpour inundated large parts of Delhi, causing severe traffic jams on key routes and leaving people stranded. The torrential downpour prompted the India Meteorological Department (IMD) to include Delhi in its list of areas of concern in the National Flash Flood Guidance Bulletin.
According to the IMD, the city's primary weather station Safdarjung recorded 79.2 mm of rainfall between 5.30 pm and 8.30 pm. While Mayur Vihar recorded 119 mm, the figure was 77.5 mm for Delhi University, 66.5 mm for Pusa, and 43.7 mm at the Palam observatory.
The traffic situation was especially chaotic on roads in Lutyens' Delhi, and those leading to Gurugram, Noida, Ghaziabad and Faridabad.
Meanwhile, three people were killed and about 40 went missing after two separate incidents of cloudburst in Himachal Pradesh. Several houses and roads were washed away after a cloudburst in the Jhakhari area of the Rampur subdivision of Shimla district early Thursday. Roads were washed away and a hydropower project was damaged as well, according to PTI.
Heavy monsoon rains have left a trail of destruction across the country this year.
In Kerala, massive landslides triggered by torrential rains hit the Mundakkai, Chooralmala, Attamala, and Noolpuzha hamlets in Wayanad in the early hours of Tuesday, killing over 150 people, including children. Several people remain missing in landslide-hit Wayanad, where rescue personnel are battling adverse conditions, including muddy ground, as they search through destroyed homes and buildings, PTI reported.
Military personnel on Wednesday intensified search and rescue operations in the district. The Army said it had recovered over 80 bodies and rescued nearly 1,000 people.
In Uttar Pradesh, heavy rainfall on Wednesday afternoon flooded parts of the Vidhan Sabha building in Lucknow, where the Monsoon session of the assembly is now on. The two-hour spell of rain led to waterlogging in several parts of the state capital.
On Wednesday, 12 people were killed in rain-related incidents and three died in fires, the state relief commissioner's office said. Currently, seven districts in the state, Ayodhya, Ballia, Lakhimpur Kheri, Farrukhabad, Sitapur, Bahraich and Hardoi, are affected by floods.