NEW DELHI: The flooded
underpasses
in the capital have taken a heavy toll with four lives being lost in them between Friday and Saturday following the torrential rain which disrupted normal life. This has brought the toll in the city in the aftermath of the intense downpour to 11.
A 60-year-old
security guard
's body was removed from an underpass in Okhla in south Delhi while another body of a young man, about 20 years old, was taken out of the flooded
Shalimar Bagh
underpass in north-west Delhi on Friday.
The latter is still to be identified. Meanwhile, two boys, aged around 12, drowned in another
waterlogged
underpass in Samaypur Badli, also in north-west Delhi, on Saturday.
The reasons for the senseless deaths was in one case a desperate attempt to cross to the other side for work and in the rest going for a swim or bath. In either case, the authorities must be blamed for being negligent in not barring access to the underpasses early enough and not draining out the water fast enough.
Though some parts of the city witnessed light rain on Saturday, IMD has sounded an orange alert for moderate to heavy rain Sunday and heavy rain Monday and Tuesday.
At 6.23am on Friday, police received information about a man having drowned in the water at the Okhla underpass. "A passerby spotted him in the water with a scooter found nearby," said a senior officer. A team from the local police station rushed to the scene and pulled the man out. They found an Aadhaar card in his pocket which identified him as Digvijay Kumar Chaudhary, a resident of Jaitpur Extension.
He worked as a security guard at a private firm in Okhla Phase 2 and was probably on his way to work when the incident occurred. The man was rushed to AIIMS Trauma Centre where he was declared dead. Police have initiated legal proceedings under Section 174 of the CrPC. The underpass is managed by DDA but a spokesperson denied any knowledge of the incident.
4 boys drown in city, man electrocuted
In the incident at the Samaypur Badli underpass, bodies of the two boys were fished out at 4:15 pm on Saturday after the police responded to a call at 2:25 pm. "Upon reaching the spot, we found that the underpass near the metro had approximately 2.5-3 feet of water," the officer said.
One of the deceased was identified as a resident of Siraspur while the other remains unidentified. Proceedings under Section 174 of CrPC have been initiated.
In other incidents, two boys had drowned in a ditch in northeast Delhi's New Usmanpur while a 40-year-old man was electrocuted in Prem Nagar, north-west Delhi, on Friday.
Meanwhile, bodies of three labourers were finally recovered from a pit in Vasant Vihar on Saturday morning, more than 24 hours after they got buried in mud because of a mishap at a construction site.
On Friday, a canopy at the forecourt of Terminal 1 at IGI Airport had collapsed, leaving a cabbie dead and eight injured.
English (US) ·