Torrential monsoon rains bring Indian capital to halt
brought life in the Indian capital to a grinding halt
Wednesday as hundreds of thousands of commuters
— and the US secretary of state — were left
stranded on waterlogged roads.
Early morning torrential rains inundated large
swathes of New Delhi and its surrounding areas,
leaving motorists stuck in massive traffic jams,
including the motorcade of top US official John
Kerry.
“I don’t know how you all got here, you must have
needed boats to get here,” Kerry told students at a
townhall meeting after arriving an hour late due to
the traffic chaos.
Kerry’s motorcade was caught up in the gridlock for
the second time since his arrival in the capital
Monday, with the heavy showers forcing him to
cancel visits to three religious sites.
Television channels showed images of frustrated
office workers and schoolchildren stuck in buses
and cars while others waded knee-deep through
waterlogged streets.
Local media reports said five people were injured in
New Delhi’s Badarpur neighbourhood after being
struck by lightning.
B K Yadav, a meteorological department official,
said that the capital received the highest daily
rainfall of the annual monsoon season, which is
nearing its end.
“We recorded 62 mm in three hours in New Delhi,
the highest for this season,” Yadav told AFP.
Traffic jams in New Delhi and its satellite town of
Gurgaon are common in the rainy season, mostly
due to crumbling civic infrastructure, clogged
drains and uncontrolled construction.
The four-month-long monsoon begins in June and
is vital for irrigating farmland of more than 330
million Indian farmers.
But excess rains sparking flooding in many parts of
east and north India have killed at least 150 people
and displaced millions.
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