Road caves in, leads to traffic snarls

A section of Ashoka Road in New Delhi caved in on Thursday, disrupting the vehicular movement on the route. (Photo: Biplab Banerjee)

A road from India Gate towards Ashoka Road caved in due to incessant rains on Thursday morning, disrupting traffic on the route.

“The road from India Gate towards Ashoka Road, in front of bungalow number 14, Windsor Place, has caved-in due to incessant rains disrupting traffic on that route,” joint commissioner of police (traffic), Garima Bhatnagar said.

“The area has now been cordoned off and the traffic diverted. NDMC workers were pressed into service to repair the road. Vehicular movement on the stretch slowed till the repairing work was done,” she added.

Heavy rains continued to lash Delhi-NCR for the second consecutive day, causing waterlogging and traffic jams in many areas.

Commuters again faced a tough time in the morning rush hours. Traffic snarls were witnessed on roads leading to Gurgaon and the airport. Heavy rain affected flight operations too.

Traffic was slow at ITO, Dhaula Kuan, Ridge Road, Mayapuri flyover, Madhuban Chowk, Sarai Kale Khan and Nizamuddin, among other areas. Traffic slowed to a crawl in many places and there were breakdowns of vehicles.

Delhi on Wednesday recorded the season’s highest rainfall at 63.1 mm till 5.30 pm and the readings hovered around the same levels for overnight rains too.

“The Safdarjung observatory recorded 63.5 mm rainfall till 8.30 am while the reading at Palam observatory was 55.6 mm,” a met official said.

“The maximum temperature settled at 31 degrees Celsius, three notches below normal while the minimum was recorded at 25.2 degrees Celsius, a notch below normal,” the met official said. The incessant rains contributed to high humidity levels which oscillated between 97 and 78 per cent.

According to the met department, thunderstorms with moderate to heavy rain will occur over many places in northwest, south and southeast NCR and Delhi on Friday.