Hutments washed away in overflowing drain near ITO; dramatic video goes viral

The force of the overflowing water was such that it took less than a minute for the jhuggis located along the banks of the drain to be swept away. On social media, videos of the incident were shared widely.

Over half-a-dozen hutments were swept away, portion of an under-construction building of the World Health Organisation (WHO) was submerged and drain water spilled on to the Ring Road, IP Marg and the stretch near Vikas Bhawan after heavy morning rain on Sunday caused a stormwater drain to overflow near ITO in Central Delhi, the police said.

The drain, known as Sen Nursing Home Drain, comes under the jurisdiction of the South Delhi Municipal Corporation. (HT Photo)

The force of the overflowing water was such that it took less than a minute for the jhuggis located along the banks of the drain to be swept away. On social media, videos of the incident were shared widely.

Police said no lives were lost in flooding but several pet animals were swept away and a 36-year-old man narrowly escaped getting washed away with the water. “The children of our slum raised an alarm in the nick of time, because of which we were able to escape from our houses,” said Vishal, one of those whose houses were destroyed.

The traffic police had to divert vehicles on the affected nearby roads to other routes such as Vikas Marg, Bhairon Road and towards Akshardham.

The drain, known as Sen Nursing Home Drain, comes under the jurisdiction of the South Delhi Municipal Corporation. On one side of the drain is a slum, Anna Nagar, while an under-construction building of the WHO is located on the other side. Anna Nagar has a mixed population of South and North Indians and most of them do odd jobs. The two sides of the drain, whose banks are cemented, are connected by an iron bridge.

Vishal, who goes by a single name, said the drain overflows every monsoon in the last four decades, but it never did any damage. “We were relaxed on Sunday morning as well despite it raining heavily,” said Vishal.

But around 8.15 am, the residents heard cries of local children and rushed out to see the water breaching the cemented banks, right along which many jhuggis had been erected.

“We had barely managed to make it out when our houses were swept away. My motorcycle got washed away and others also lost their two-wheelers. One of my goats died while another was rescued by the fire officers,” said Vishal, a flower seller.

While people managed to rush out in the nick of time, a man named Santosh Bhura happened to be carried away with the water current. “He had decided to stay in bed longer since it was a Sunday. When be tried to get out of the house, the wooden doors and windows collapsed on him. But our neighbours managed to rescue him,” said Anita, Bhura’s wife.

The local residents blamed the construction of the WHO building on the other side of the drain for the mishap. “The basement parking lot they are constructing led to the incident. It weakened the soil below,” alleged Padam Kumar, one of the affected slum dwellers.

Officials of the Delhi Jal Board (DJB), who inspected the site, also said that the construction had some role to play in the mishap. “A team of DJB officials inspected the site where NBCC was executing digging work. It appeared that the NBCC had dug up the site too deep, which weakened the foundation of the shanties that got washed away in the heavy flow of water. The matter does not involve the Jal Board,” said a spokesperson for the DJB.

But NBCC officials said they had been following all norms and constructing as per approval of the SDMC. “This is a low lying area and we have often told the authorities about water overflow in the drain. The DJB had been cooperative all along and they would use motors to flush out the water, but the drain would never be cleaned or desilted. That caused the problem on Sunday,” said an official who didn’t want to be identified.

Sanjay Bhatia, deputy commissioner of police (central district), said that there was no evidence so far of any negligence in the construction of the WHO building. No police case has been registered either.

As the drain water began overflowing on Sunday morning, about two dozen workers constructing the three-level basement parking of the WHO building -- on a 7,000 square meter plot -- left the place.

“The force of the water was so tremendous that it destroyed all barricades we had set up and submerged the entire parking lot that is about 12 metres deep. There is about 25 lakh cubic feet water in our premises now,” said the NBCC official.

A SDMC spokesperson, meanwhile, said that the agency has deployed three super sucker machines with eighteen tankers, one suction-cum-jetting machines and two pumps on the spot to drain out the water. A team of the NDRF too waited on stand-by in case there was anyone trapped in the water.