Water enters several localities; road, rail traffic affected

Surging Yamuna inundating Delhi

Water enters several localities; road, rail traffic affected

Things probably haven't been this bad for Delhi in many decades. And no, this time we aren't discussing the Commonwealth Games. The water level in the Yamuna rose to 207.11 metres at midnight, the highest in the past 32 years.

Gushing in: The water level near the old bridge in New Delhi on
Wednesday. PIC/IMTIYAZ KHAN

Flooding has been reported from a number of localities including, Garhi Mandu, Usmanpur Pusta, Jagatpur Village, Shastri Nagar, Yamuna Vihar, Madanpur, Sonia Vihar, Nigambodh, Jaitpur, Tibet Market, Yamuna Bazar, Batla House and Okhla. There were reports of two deaths in Batla house area of southeast Delhi.

The inter-state operation of buses from Kashmiri Gate was stopped as floodwater entered the ISBT. The bus operation was shifted to Ring Road right outside the bus terminus.

The Yamuna went two metres above the danger mark on Wednesday, breaching the 207-metre mark. The Central Water Commission has predicted that the level would be at maximum between 5 am and 7 am on Thursday, at about 207.30 metres. The water level in Yamuna has gone up after Haryana released 7.5 lakh cusecs of water into it on Monday, the highest discharge in a single day in the last 100 years. Railways on Wednesday had to cancel 22 trains in view of the closure of the Old Yamuna bridge in the Capital and announced diversion of 65 other trains.

"The Yamuna is surging. I have grown up in this city and have never seen such a situation. My house is almost drowning in the swelling waters. It has brought us almost out on the roads. It seems we would have to shift places soon before the situation gets worse," said Jitender, an auto rickshaw driver, a resident of Usmanpur.

The Yamuna water even touched areas surrounding Vidhan Sabha and Mukherjee Nagar in north Delhi on Wednesday.u00a0 "The water-level rise is scary. People in a dry place like Delhi are not familiar with such a situation.
If it rises more in the coming days, it will become a tough problem," said Rohit Katiyar, a Mukherjee Nagar resident.