Delhi rains: Why the Capital suffers from waterlogging each year

Delhi has endured one of its worst heatwaves in history earlier this month.

However, the National Capital now faces the biggest downpour in decades, with rainfall over a 24-hour period surpassing the city’s average for the entire month of June.

The downpour caused a fatal airport roof collapse , disrupted flights, closed a metro station, blocked underpasses, and led to massive traffic jams.

But what’s behind this watery mess? Let’s take a closer look.

The watery mess

The season’s first heavy spell of rain brought people’s daily lives to a standstill.

Waterlogging was reported on several roads and underpasses, vehicles were floating in water, long traffic snarls were reported on numerous roads, and many residents expressed frustration over the city’s poor drainage infrastructure, according to Business Today.

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The incessant rainfall caused a portion of roof to collapse at Delhi airport’s Terminal-One departure area, killing one person and injuring five others.

The incident also led to the cancellation of all departure operations from the terminal and the delay of multiple domestic flights.

Delhi lieutenant governor VK Saxena called an emergency meeting after visuals of waterlogging surfaced on social media from across the city.

He reportedly took note of the lack of preparedness and the response system and ordered officials to set up an emergency control room to address the problems.

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The revenue department has been asked to activate the disaster response cell under DDMA in case of excessive rainfall.

Airport roof collapses, roads water-logged: How Delhi has been turned into a mess after heavy downpour

The reasons behind it

Every large city has drains built to divert rainfall from low-lying areas into neighbouring lakes or reservoirs. However, a large portion of Delhi is unplanned, and not enough places are made of concrete for the rain to recharge the groundwater, which causes runoff to flood the roads and cause chaos. As noted by LG Saxena, over 50 per cent of the city is unplanned, leaving little to no room for water to soak into the land, as per Wion News.

According to Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav, the waterlogging in Delhi following torrential rains is also because of plastic pollution. All year long, plastic wrappers, bottles, and trash clog the sewers. When the rain does eventually come, the drains are clogged with trash instead of allowing the water to flow freely, which causes traffic and health issues.

Nearly 100 locations that are vulnerable to waterlogging have been identified by the authorities throughout the city, but preparation for these areas usually takes place too late, frequently after the first rains do severe damage to Delhi, as per Wion.

Senior PWD officials and experts cite several agencies, a lack of coordination, inadequate infrastructure, flawed architecture, and increasing population as the main causes, reported Indian Express.

Drains and roadways are maintained by a minimum of eleven different entities.

The “Drainage Master Plan,” which has been sitting for a while and has not yet been put into action due to several issues, including the original plan’s rejection and inadequate tender responses, is another important factor.

A senior PWD official told Indian Express, “There is no coordination among departments. For instance, there was confusion over which department the Barapullah drain falls under… we manage main stormwater drains but… domestic sewer water is often released into it. Due to this, the drain overflows and water comes onto the road. Some problem occurred at the Yamuna River gate… and Barapullah drain… which was the reason behind flooding in South and New Delhi."

Possible solutions

The first step is to increase the number of drains in the city that follow the land’s natural slope to reduce water flow, explains Wion.

Strict regulations on parking and unauthorised encroachments would also aid in lessening Delhi’s crippling effects from the rain.

The most crucial answer of all is pre-planning, which comes in second only to reducing plastic pollution and unlawful waste dumping.

According to Reuters, experts say India needs to dig more lakes and ponds to store heavy rainfalls and prevent massive water shortages in heavily populated cities like Delhi and Bengaluru. Municipalities need to ensure drains and canals are un-clogged to avoid heavy flooding and major disruptions.

The country also needs to substantially increase its green cover and raise public awareness about the impacts of heat, stagger work hours and change schoolday timings, the experts say.

Intense rainfall in Delhi

Delhi’s main Safdarjung weather station recorded 228.1 millimetres of rainfall in the 24 hours ending at 8.30 am, its highest 24-hour rainfall in June in 88 years, according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD).

Areas around the Indira Gandhi International Airport had 148.5 millimetres of rain over a three-hour period on Friday, compared with 101.7 millimetres for all of June last year.

The seasonal monsoon rain, which slowly covers the country beginning from its southern tip at the end of May, brought respite from heatwave conditions that had persisted in Delhi until last week, according to Reuters.

Temperatures this summer have neared 50 degrees Celsius in the city and Delhi has recorded at least 40 consecutive days of temperatures at or above 40 degrees Celsius up to 22 June, according to IMD data.

An IMD official told the news agency that the progress of the monsoon was stalled for a week, which led to lower rainfall and heatwaves in northern India, but sudden thunderstorms last week in the region pushed the monsoon clouds back on track.

He said this would help the monsoon cover the entire country on time or even a few days ahead of the normal schedule.

Climate change

For every degree increase in earth’s temperature, the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere can increase by about 7%, according to a NASA article in 2022. Experts say that can lead to heavy rains in a short period of time.

“Because of climate change, you will get more extreme rain events, which means more rain in a fewer number of rainy days, rainy hours,” Sunita Narain, director general of Indian research body Centre for Science and Environment, said in a video post on social media this week.

“If you look at the data from across India, you will find that many weather stations are already reporting that they are breaking the record of 24-hour rainfall, which means that a city, a region, can get its annual rain, as much as a whole year’s rain, in a matter of a few days or even one day.”

With inputs from agencies