New Delhi, Aug 22 (Inditop.com) The Delhi authorities claim that this time around they were prepared for heavy rains and arrangements were in place to tackle any eventuality – but when it rained Friday, it poured and poured and once again, there was chaos all over!
“The was no deficiency in arrangements to tackle the situation arising out of heavy rains. The problem emerged only because there was unprecedented heavy rainfall during one hour Friday,” Delhi Chief Secretary Rakesh Mehta said here Saturday after a high-level meeting to review the situation that arose after Friday’s downpour.
The meeting was attended by officials of the civic authorities, the Public Works Department (PWD) and Delhi traffic police.
“It was reported that 45 places were waterlogged in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) area. The waterlogging persisted for more than one-and-a-half hours because the capacity of the drainage system is 25 mm per hour whereas rainfall was 75 mm during one hour,” Mehta said.
Explaining the reasons of waterlogging on Delhi roads, Mehta said: “The wind was blowing at 100 km per hour resulting in the uprooting of trees and falling of leaves. The leaves which accumulated in bell mouths clogged the entire drainage system.”
The capital received 74 mm of rainfall Friday, coupled with strong winds.
Mehta has directed all the concerned agencies to continue to review their arrangements at regular intervals and be prepared for any other unforeseen situation in the near future.
“Around 200 traffic lights in various parts of the capital were shut off to handle unprecedented heavy traffic during the rain as it becomes impossible to tackle huge traffic during heavy rain with the traffic lights on,” said Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic) S.N. Srivastava.
