The incessant rain throughout Saturday led to waterlogging in several parts of Delhi, throwing vehicular movement into chaos, despite the volume of traffic being low on account of it being the weekend and the second Saturday of the month, when all government offices are shut.
As many as six arterial stretches in central, south, south-west and outer Delhi were waterlogged and several rain battered stretches developed craters as well. Two such instances were reported from south Delhi – near the Moti Bagh Gurdwara and on a slip road from Aurobindo Marg towards Press Enclave Road, the Delhi Traffic Police said.
Snarls — triggered by the continuous downpour, waterlogging, non-functional traffic signals and potholes — stretched for kilometres, even during the non-peak hours.
Motorists were left ruing the conditions and many took to social media to lament about the chaos and seek the help from of traffic police in easing the bumper-to-bumper traffic. Some social media users also uploaded videos and photographs of jams and screenshots of Google maps, where most roads and routes appeared as crimson streaks, indicative of high traffic volume and delayed travel time.
More chaos could be in store on Sunday as well, according to the traffic police, which issued two advisories about religious processions scheduled on Sunday on the occasion of Valmiki Jayanti” and“Eid-e-Milad-ul-Nabi” because of which traffic could be disrupted in several parts of the city, especially post afternoon.
The police listed a series of roads in north, east, west north-east, central, outer, north-west, outer-north, south-east, and Shahdara districts, where religious processions will be taken out by Hindus and Muslims and urged motorists to go through the list before starting their journey.
On Saturday. at least three Twitter users reported about ambulances stuck in jams on Arya Samaj Road, Raja Puri, and Najafgarh Road.
“Traffic also slowed because of potholes on important stretches such as Ring Road outside Moti Bagh gurdwara. This is one of the busiest stretches that connect south and west Delhi. The road is also used by people travelling to Gurugram or the airport. There was pothole and then water logging ahead at the Dhaula Kuan flyover,” said a senior traffic police officer
In south Delhi, movement of vehicles was disrupted Lajpat Nagar flyover and Chirag Dilli flyover, near Hazrat Nizamuddin metro station, Barapullah flyover, Delhi-Noida Direct (DND) Flyway, from IIT flyover till Mehrauli, from Chhatarpur towards Vasant Kunj, from IIT flyover till Munirka.
“The traffic control room flashed messages to all personnel to ensure manual regulation of traffic at intersections where there was no power supply, remove broken down vehicles and restore normal flow of traffic,” the traffic police said.
Prashant Raj, a commuter on Mehrauli-Badarpur (MB) Road, said, “Severe waterlogging coupled with ongoing metro construction work led to delays of more than 30-40 minutes.”
Dhaula Kuan was also heavily waterlogged, disrupting the schedule of those headed towards the airport and Gurugram.
