Rain continues to pour misery, hits life in Chandigarh
Rain continued to pour misery as normal life was hit hard after the city received another spell of rain on Tuesday.
Even as residents were yet to come out of the mayhem caused by the region’s heaviest rainfall in the past two days, the city was lashed by another spell of 31mm rain coupled with thunderstorm and lightning till 5.30 pm on Tuesday that was again the heaviest in Haryana, the weathermen confirmed.
Having received 213mm rainfall in the past month — the highest in the past decade and 37 per cent more than the normal precipitation in June — Chandigarh entered July with 31mm rainfall.
The heaviest monsoon rainfall of 221.2mm during the past three days brought much relief to the locals from the hot weather conditions, but left major parts of the Tricity region, comprising Chandigarh, Mohali, and Panchkula inundated with roads continuing to cave in, trees and poles getting uprooted at several locations, damaging the public property and major disruption in power and water supply.
The hollow claims of the monsoon preparedness by the civic authorities were washed away with the onset of the rainy season itself as the residents continued to fend for themselves in the waterlogged roads and streets, caved-in road portions turning virtual death traps, clogged drains and road gullies, with uprooted trees and poles falling on vehicles, besides power and water supply remaining suspended for long hours.
The residents once again experienced long power outages besides voltage fluctuations and frequent tripping in major parts of the Tricity on Tuesday.
Officials of the Electricity Department said the major disruption was caused by breakdowns due to rain and thunderstorms.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued a yellow alert for thunderstorms and lightning at isolated places in Chandigarh, Punjab and Haryana on Wednesday; heavy rain in Chandigarh and Punjab on Thursday; and heavy to very heavy rain in Chandigarh, Punjab and Haryana from Saturday to Monday.
Meanwhile, Chandigarh recorded a maximum of 29.9°C and minimum 24.8°C on Tuesday, which was 0.8°C below and 0.7°C above Monday’s mercury and below normal by 5.6°C and 2.3°C, respectively.
The weathermen have predicted a generally and partly cloudy sky with thunderstorms and rain in the Tricity for the next five days till July 6.
Bathinda in Punjab and Sirsa in Haryana recorded the highest minimum temperature of 29.5°C and 28.6°C, respectively, to be the warmest towns in the region on Monday night.
While Bathinda remained the hottest place in the region on Tuesday as well with the maximum of 35.2°C — the highest in the region — Sirsa measured the maximum of 35.2°C to stay the hottest town in Haryana today again.
Mahendragarh in Haryana and Nawanshahr in Punjab experienced the least warm night in the region on Monday with the lowest minimum temperature of 23.1°C and 23.6°C, respectively.
“As compared to yesterday, there was a fall of 1.5°C and rise of 0.4°C in average maximum temperature, with the mercury remaining markedly below normal by 5.4 and 5.2 degrees in Punjab and Haryana, respectively, on Tuesday,” the IMD said.
Chandigarh