Delhi faces flood threat on heavy rainfall

NEW DELHI: The sun was out in Delhi on Tuesday, but incessant rains in the hills caused the Yamuna to overflow and cross the danger mark, forcing the city's flood control department to take emergency measures.

Faced with a flood-like situation, the neighbouring state of Haryana has still kept the Hathni Kund barrage open and the Yamuna is expected to cross the 207.75 meter level by Wednesday afternoon, breaking the record level of 207.49 m caused by flash floods in 1978. At 9 pm on Tuesday, the Yamuna was flowing at 205.45 m. "We are keeping an eye. We will reassess the situation tonight," one official of the Irrigation and Flood Control department in New Delhi, said. The department had begun evacuating people from the flood plains. "Tents and provision of food and fresh water have been set up for these people," he said.

The department, however, added that the situation was expected to come under control by Wednesday night, by when the water level would start receding. During the day, the amount of water released at Hathnikund had already come down to around 90,000 cusec. Haryana chief minister, Bhupinder Singh Hooda said that the flow of water from the Hathnikund barrage reduced to 1.14 lakh cusecs from the maximum of 8.06 lakh cusecs of water on Monday. In the meanwhile, the hilly areas of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand continued to reel under floods and landslides that threw normal life and business out of gear, and left several dead and thousands of tourists stranded.

In Uttarakhand, which has seen the maximum loss in lives and property, the state government has been carrying on relief and rescue operation. Subhash Kumar, the chief secretary of Uttarakhand, said 52 people have lost their lives and over 50,000 pilgrims and tourists are stranded.

Meanwhile, clear sunny day prevailed in most parts of northwest India on Tuesday, with the India Meteorological Department (IMD) forecasting dry weather conditions to prevail in these parts.