Gurgaon Hit by Torrential Rains, City Issues Work from Home Advisory

Gurgaon:

After a severe night downpour, Gurgaon came to a halt and received 133 mm of rainfall in a span of 12 hours along with 103 mm in 90 mins between 7.30 pm to 9 pm on 9 July and therefore this event led to a Work From Home in the Gurgaon district administration advisory to the corporate and private offices on Thursday.

India Meteorological Department (IMD) has given an orange warning to the area of more wet weather. This specific classification of warning means a greater than normal probability of losses of vital amenities and a rise in the risks of flooding. The IMD also mentioned the northwards shift of the monsoon axis as the reason due to which the sudden deluge occurred.

Sohna Road, Golf Course Extension Road, NH-8, Rajeev Chowk, and Sheetla Mata Road were some of the main traffic spots that got flooded early Thursday and water was up to 3-4 feet in some sectors. One broken down truck caused a three hour traffic jam at Rajeev Chowk. Viewers on social media compared the floods to the “Venice vibes” and shared viral photos with the cars floating and ambulances sitting stranded.

Business commuters parked their cars and the markets and buses stopped. Pedestrians hid under flyovers or sheltered themselves in bus shelters. This was further aggravated by waterlogging in low lying regions, particularly in the Delhi-Gurgaon border where a drainage cum footpath construction has long been in the offing but has never been completed, despite flooding several times during the monsoons in Kapashera.

In the name of easing the strain and to make sure citizens remained secure, District Commissioner Ajay Kumar asked corporate offices to encourage home working conditions, and requested residents not to commute except when necessary. The busier junctions of Delhi-NCR were also waterlogged, such as Noida, and Ek Murti Chowk, and the Expressways of Ghaziabad.

Traffic police and civil agencies were to put pumps to clean up waterlogged streets, with the fire department and NDRF remaining on standby. Despite the fact that there have been no reported injuries, they are keeping an eye out on the possible issues of electrocution, as well as intend to look at the weakened infrastructure in the future legally quoted in brackets.

Preparedness and weather outlook

IMD also predicts that more rainfall will occur until Thursday, after which the intensity will reduce on 6th onwards. Experts reiterated that Gurgaon is in a water logging prone region, and added that the city needs to put in place long overdue drainage works as soon as possible.

As much as the city can be expecting some relief within the next two days, the orange alert and the WFH advisory in place today demonstrates that urban planning is still failing at large. At the moment, it is recommended to stay vigilant, do not travel and listen to official recommendations. There is a need now to accelerate drainage plans by civic bodies in order to avoid another flooding of such magnitude.