Commuters struggles with monsoon fury in Delhi

     New Delhi, Jun 28 (PTI) Uday Bhaskar, a commuter who missed his flight after getting stuck in a traffic jam expressed disappointment over the government's unpreparedness as heavy rain in Delhi early Friday brought the national capital to a standstill.
     Monsoon arrived in Delhi with a fury in the early hours of Friday as heavy rains, the highest in a single day of June in 88 years, lashed the city leaving streets flooded, traffic caught in chaos and flight operations suspended at Delhi airport's Terminal-1 due to a canopy collapse.
     "On the very first day of monsoon, a flood-like situation emerged. I wonder how they are going to manage the situation going ahead. We are utterly disappointed by the government's mismanagement," Bhaskar said.
     Rows of irked passengers were seen at the airport as flights routed to different destinations were cancelled due to the downpour.
     Finding happiness amid the mayhem of Delhi monsoon, Jaswant Singh whose 11 am flight to Darbhanga got postponed, said, “I am happy that my flight got delayed, otherwise, I would have missed it due to the roads being jammed due to heavy rainfall and mismanagement."
     However, after his flight got rescheduled for Saturday, Balvinder Singh said, "This is not just a waste of time, but also our money because now we have to arrange accommodation ourselves since the airline is not providing anything."
     Travellers faced numerous challenges, including booking a place to stay overnight, as several flights got cancelled or delayed.
     Numerous videos and photos have surfaced on social media showing waterlogging in several parts of the city.
     While some vehicles were seen submerged in water, the others were seen lying in pits and potholes as roads caved in at some areas due to heavy rain.
     In several areas, vehicles were submerged as rainwater flooded streets.
     “I was running towards my office in Gurugram and slipped. The conditions were so bad that people could not walk on the road. We had to take the help of rickshaw pullers to cross roads as the water reached near our waist,” Saurav Sharma said.
     Advocate Siddhart Shrivastav said that the Meerut Expressway was completely jammed and he returned home after struggling on the streets of Delhi for three hours.
     "I was going to Dwarka court from my home in Ghaziabad. The traffic was so heavy that I asked my colleague to attend to the matter. I managed to reach Sarai Kale Khan in three hours. However, later I returned to my home," he said.
     Delhi recorded 228.1 mm of rainfall on Friday, the highest since 1936 for the month of June, and the weatherman predicted more spells over the weekend in the national capital.
     The Safdarjung Observatory, the city's primary weather station, recorded 228.1 mm of rainfall in the 24 hours ending at 8.30 am on Friday, more than three times the June rainfall average of 74.1 mm and the highest for the month in at least 16 years.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)