New Delhi: A massive downpour in Delhi over the last 24 hours caved parts of a road in southwest Delhi, into which a truck fell on Wednesday night. A video shared by news agency ANI shows the truck slowly slipping into the caved portion of the road in Najafgarh as onlookers screamed and alerted people to move away.
The part in which the truck fell had already been taped off by authorities. The incident occurred near a metro construction site, as the blue-coloured iron boards the authorities erect to cordon the area can be seen behind the truck.
The national capital registered its highest 24-hour rainfall in May in 70 years as Cyclone Tauktae, which made landfall in Gujarat on Monday evening, impacted the weather in the city and its surrounding areas.
On Wednesday, Delhi had already recorded around 60 mm rainfall by 8:30 pm, surpassing the record of 60 mm rainfall in a day in May, registered on May 24, 1976. The rain also caused a drastic drop in the maximum temperature, which was 23.8 degrees on Wednesday, 16 degrees below normal and the lowest in May since 1951.
Delhi's maximum temperature was lower than hill stations such as Srinagar (25.8 degrees) and Dharamshala (27.2 degrees).
“Today, Safdarjung recorded a maximum temperature of 23.8 degrees Celsius. This is the lowest maximum temperature since 1951," Kuldeep Srivastava, the head of the India Meteorological Department's regional forecasting centre, was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.
The Met department said the rainfall in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, northern Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand was the result of interactions between the remnant of Cyclone Tauktae and a western disturbance. The weather department has predicted moderate rainfall for Delhi on Thursday as well.
Meanwhile, as many as 13 people lost their lives in Gujarat as Cyclone Tauktae caused destruction in parts of the state, uprooting electric poles, trees and damaging thousands of houses and roads, officials said.
In what was one of the worst cyclones faced by the state, Tauktae triggered heavy rain in many parts along its way from the Saurashtra coast to north Gujarat with as many as 46 talukas receiving over 100 mm of downpour, while 12 of them recorded 150 mm to 175 mm of rain.