Monsoon advances in Gujarat, Rajasthan; heavy rains affect normal life

New Delhi: Heavy rains lashed several parts across India, including Gujarat and Rajasthan, on Sunday affecting normal life as monsoon further advanced towards the northern states.

Several deaths were reported across the country due to rain-related incidents like lightning strikes and drowning.

Maharashtra, Bihar, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh were among the states that witnessed heavy downpour on Sunday, according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD).

Gujarat is experiencing a wet spell due to cyclonic circulation over the northeast Arabian Sea adjoining the Saurashtra region, it said.

Heavy downpours caused waterlogging and affected traffic movement in Surat, Bhuj, Vapi, Bharuch and Ahmedabad cities due to inundation in low-lying areas, rendering some roads and underpass inaccessible, officials said.

Palsana Taluka in Surat district received 153 mm of rainfall, the highest in the state, in just ten hours.

The wet spell will continue in the next four days in Gujarat, as per the Met department.

Isolated places in south and central Gujarat and Saurashtra region are expected to receive heavy rains over the next two days, IMD stated in a release. 

With the IMD predicting heavy rains in Delhi till July 2, civic bodies have started boosting manpower and equipment deployment to address waterlogging and keeping field units on high alert.  The national capital was brought to its knees on Friday morning as 228.1 mm of rainfall on the first day of monsoon, the highest for the month of June since 1936, submerged several parts of the city and claimed multiple lives.

In Rajasthan, several parts were lashed by heavy showers, with Churu recording the highest rainfall -- 51.4 mm -- on Sunday even as the temperatures remained high in the city at 40.2 degrees Celsius.

In the last 24 hours, some parts of the Bharatpur division recorded heavy to very heavy rainfall.

The Met Department has predicted heavy rains in some parts of eastern Rajasthan and light to moderate rains in some parts of western Rajasthan in the next 4-5 days.

The highest maximum temperature in the state was recorded at 41.3 degrees in Sri Ganganagar.  In Uttar Pradesh’s Deoria district, two people, including a priest, died in separate incidents of lighting, which also left seven others injured, on Sunday, police said.

According to police, the incident happened around 1 pm when it was raining heavily in the area. Some people, including the temple priest Radheshyam Giri (50), had taken shelter in the temple at the Goplapur village when lightning struck the structure. In the second incident, Rajnath Kushwaha (40) was struck by lightning when he was sowing paddy in his fields. He died on the spot.

In Maharashtra, a woman and a 13-year-old girl drowned in a waterfall close to the backwater of Bhushi Dam in Pune's Lonavala area on Sunday, while three children in the 4-6 age group are missing, a police official said.

The incident happened at 1:30 pm, after which search and rescue teams rushed to the spot, a police officer said, adding that "it seems they are part of a family and slipped into a waterfall some two kilometres away from Bhushi Dam and drowned at the reservoir downstream." In Jammu and Kashmir, a massive landslide blocked Kishtwar-Paddar road Sunday as light to moderate rains lashed isolated places across Jammu division, providing some sort of relief to the people from the scorching heat.

The landslide, triggered by rains, hit the road near Patharnaki in Kishtwar district this afternoon, forcing suspension of vehicular movement.

The weather in most parts of Jammu province remained overcast throughout the day with reports of light to moderate rains in different areas, especially in the hilly districts of Kishtwar, Doda, Rajouri, Poonch, Udhampur and Ramban.

The summer capital Jammu also witnessed light rainfall in the early hours of the day.  The weather office predicted light to moderate rain or thundershowers at many places of Jammu division towards late night or early morning hours till July 3 followed by intermittent light to moderate rainfall at most places with heavy showers or rainfall at few places from July 4 to 7.

The weather office has also issued an advisory of flash floods, landslides and shooting stones  Several roads were waterlogged after heavy rains in Uttarakhan’s Haldwani, Ramnagar, Dehradun, Haridwar, Uttar Pradesh’s Moradabad, Patna and Hyderabad.  Rainwater entered into a hospital in Bihar’s Jehanabad.

The IMD on Saturday predicted heavy to very heavy rainfall in northwest and northeast India over the next four to five days.

The IMD also said that the southwest monsoon has further advanced into the remaining parts of east Uttar Pradesh and some areas of west Uttar Pradesh on Saturday.

Conditions are favourable for the monsoon to advance into more parts of west Rajasthan, Haryana, Chandigarh, Punjab, and the remaining areas of west Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, and Jammu over the next two to three days, it added.