Delhi flood: Traffic in chaos; backflow fears grow

Key stretches of the Ring Road near ISBT Kashmere Gate and between Sarai Kale Khan and the WHO building were closed due to waterlogging, causing widespread traffic chaos in Delhi. The situation is expected to worsen as more rain is forecasted. The Delhi-Meerut Expressway and NH24 traffic will be diverted to other Yamuna links, leading to further congestion. The Delhi Metro has also been affected, with the Yamuna Bank Metro station temporarily closed.

Key stretches of the Ring Road, near ISBT Kashmere Gate and between Sarai Kale Khan and the WHO building, were shut off and the Gandhi Nagar-Akshardham stretch of the Pusta Road was off limits for traffic, significantly reducing the routes that people living across the river in the east could take to reach Delhi, triggering widespread traffic chaos that extended well into the city.

An NDRF team conducts a rescue operation on Ring Road in New Delhi on Thursday. (Sanchit Khanna/HT Photo)

Senior traffic police officers said the situation was set to worsen on Friday, particularly after an advisory announced the stretch on Ring Road between Sarai Kale Khan and the WHO building was closed due to waterlogging.

“No vehicular traffic will be allowed on Mahatma Gandhi Marg from Sarai Kale Khan towards IP Flyover due to overflow of drain water near WHO Building. Commuters are advised to avoid the stretch,” said an advisory by the Delhi Traffic Police, even as people reported spotting overflowing drain water in areas close to Bhagwandas road and outside Supreme Court at Mathura road late on Thursday.

An official at the Lieutenant Governor’s (LG) office said a regulator at the drain near Indraprashtha Metro Station had failed, causing the drainwater to backflow, along with the Yamuna. “The authorities are trying to fix it with little success. If the regulator is not fixed soon, water will reach Mathura Road and Supreme Court,” the official said.

A Delhi government spokesperson confirmed the damage, saying a regulator in the drain near Indraprastha bus stand had failed, resulting in Yamuna flood waters flowing towards the city as backflow. “CM Arvind Kejriwal has taken immediate cognisance of the situation and directed for reinforcements to be made at the damaged site. On CM’s instructions, irrigation and flood control minister Saurabh Bhardwaj is present on the spot. The entire team of senior officers of department has been on the site and labour workers have been mobilised at a very large scale,” the spokesperson said, adding that the “situation will hopefully be under control soon and the flow of water will be stopped”.

Delhi drains typically empty into the Yamuna and with the river at record levels -- higher than the drain outlet -- there are growing fears of backflow from these drains inundating parts of the city.

During the day, traffic crawled in several parts of east, north, central, and south Delhi as the restricted stretches led to spillover load to other arterial stretches. Among the hardest hit were people commuting to and from East Delhi, Noida and Ghaziabad.

The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) tweeted that entry and exit to Yamuna Bank Metro station on the Blue Line was temporarily closed. “Due to the escalating water levels of the Yamuna River, the approach road leading to the Yamuna Bank metro station is currently inaccessible,” DMRC said.

The Delhi Metro operations continued as usual but as a precautionary measure, the trains were running at a restricted speed of 30 km/hour over the four metro bridges built across the Yamuna. These bridges serve routes on the Red, Blue line, Pink line, and Magenta Lines.

The closures mean the Delhi-Meerut Expressway and NH24 traffic will need to be diverted to other Yamuna links such as Vikas Marg, Kalindi Kunj Road, and Delhi-Noida Direct (DND) link – all of which were choked on Thursday.

The worst congestions were reported near Sarai Kale Khan and both carriageways of Vikas Marg in the morning as well as evening hours.

Surendar Singh, who commutes from Model Town to Rajiv Chowk every day said, that the time he spent on the road on Thursday had more than doubled compared to other days. “It took me three hours instead of one to reach my office at Rajiv Chowk by bike,” said Singh.