Rain, lightning strikes kill 7 in north India; 200 flights delayed

New Delhi: An early morning storm and torrential rains swept across north India on Friday, giving relief to people who have been facing high temperatures in the past few days, but also killed seven people in rain-related incidents and caused air and road traffic disruptions.

Delhi received its second-highest May rainfall since 1901, with Safdarjung observatory recording 77 mm of rainfall that occurred within three hours, resulting in a 7-10 degree Celsius temperature drop across the National Capital Region. The highest May rainfall (119.3 mm) occurred in 2021 thanks to Cyclone Tauktae.

The rainfall-related toll includes a 28-year-old woman and her three children who died when their house at Najafgarh in south southwest Delhi area collapsed after a tree fell on it during the heavy rain. Over 100 trees were uprooted or branches were broken across the capital city and its satellites like Noida, Gurugram, Faridabad and Ghaziabad.

“Uprooted trees and road signage, broken branches and water logging caused traffic snarls,” said a teacher who travelled from Greater Noida to her school in east Delhi in the morning.

Meteorologists said the heavy downpour was caused by moisture and wind convergence over the region, fed by both the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal.

“Moisture and wind convergence over the area, both from the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal, assisted by persistent highly favourable wind conditions at both the lower and middle layers of the earth's atmosphere, caused the storm and heavy downpour,” a senior scientist at the India Meteorological Department said. The rain was accompanied by south-easterly winds reaching up to 50 kmph.

Three flights were diverted, and more than 200 flights were delayed at the Delhi airport as thunderstorms and gusty winds disrupted operations. An official said two flights scheduled to land at the Delhi airport were diverted to Jaipur and one to Ahmedabad.

Delhi's Minto Bridge, ITO, Major Somnath Marg in RK Puram, and Khanpur were flooded with rainwater, causing heavy traffic jams. Traffic crawled on the Delhi-Gurugram Expressway while congestion was also seen at Hero Honda Chowk, Rajiv Chowk, and IFFCO Chowk.

Traffic jams also happened along the NH-9 as well as in Faridabad and Mathura because of inundated roads, as commuters remained stuck in slow-moving traffic for hours.

IMD says a fresh spell of rainfall, accompanied by thunderstorm/dust storm and squally winds likely over northwest India till May 7. Rainfall accompanied by thunderstorms, lightning, hailstorms and squally winds over east and central India is also likely to continue till May 4.