From Delhi to UP: Rain showers misery on north India

New Delhi/Lucknow: North India continues to be battered by incessant rains on Tuesday disrupting normal life with Yamuna river breaching the danger mark, raising the chances of flood in Delhi and causing heavy traffic jams in Gurugram and other parts of the National Capital Region.

Hills of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand and large parts of Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan were also pounded by the south west monsoon. Heavy to very heavy rainfall would continue over north west India for next two days, said an India Meteorological Department official.

The two hill states that witnessed cloudburst and extremely heavy rainfall events in the past week causing multiple landslides, experienced extremely heavy rainfall of 230 mm on Tuesday.

Delhi has breached 1,000 mm of rainfall for the season as rain lashed the national capital and its surrounding region. The city had crossed its annual average rainfall mark of 774 mm last month.

Dark clouds hovered over the skyline, and steady rain was witnessed since morning, keeping the city wet throughout the day.

With high volumes of water being released from the Wazirabad and Hathnikund barrages, the Yamuna in Delhi crossed the evacuation mark for the first time this year on Tuesday and water entered several low-lying areas along its banks, forcing people to move to safer places.

IMD officials said a low pressure zone has formed over the Bay of Bengal and it would be more prominent by Wednesday gathering strength. There is also an upper air cyclonic circulation over Haryana and a Western Disturbance near the Pakistan border.

Because of the interactions of the three weather systems, more rainfall is likely in the next few days across north west India, the northern plains and large parts of eastern and western India.

In Uttar Pradesh, 16 people were killed in separate incidents of lightning and house collapse as heavy rains continued to pound the state throwing normal life out of gear at many places.

Six people lost their lives in incidents of house collapse amid heavy rains in Meerut and Moradabad districts in the past 24-hours. Lightning strikes claimed ten lives in Mirzapur, Prayagraj, Pratapgarh, Bahraich and Gonda districts, reports said.

Power supply was disrupted in some places after electricity poles were uprooted while movement of vehicular traffic was affected at some other places after trees fell on the roads amid rains. The Met office has predicted heavy rains in many regions, especially in eastern UP in the next few days.

An orange alert was sounded in the western UP districts of Shamli, Muzaffarnagar, Saharanpur. A yellow alert was sounded in 22 other districts in the eastern and Avadh region.

Chandigarh administration has announced closure of schools on Wednesday due to inclement weather. The same step has been taken by UP’s Gautam Buddh Nagar district (Noida and Greater Noida areas) administration to ensure the safety of students and staff.