Is Delhi Storm-Ready? Deaths, Wreckage Paint Bleak Picture

A barrage of sudden, violent storms has turned Delhi's summer into a season of chaos.

- Paras Singh, Snehil Sinha and Jasjeev Gandhiok

NEW DELHI: In a city accustomed to sweltering heat this time of year, winds howling at speeds of up to 80 km/hr have instead ushered in destruction. Trees have been ripped from the earth, tin sheets flung like shrapnel, and roads flooded in minutes. The skies open for barely half an hour, yet the Capital buckles—flights are grounded, homes collapse, and people die.

The southwest monsoon is still weeks away. But in just three weeks of May, 12 people have died in rain-linked incidents, many crushed under walls or electrocuted by falling wires.

The city, meanwhile, remains dangerously unprepared. Drains are still clogged, tree roots strangled by concrete, and the so-called quick response teams (QRTs)—announced with much fanfare by the new Delhi government—are nowhere to be seen.

On May 2, Delhi was battered by 77mm of rainfall in a single day—the second-highest May rainfall ever. The damage was swift and unforgiving. A woman and her three young children were buried alive when their house collapsed in Dwarka. In Green Park, a 25-year-old construction worker died of electrocution. That day alone saw five deaths.

Two weeks later, on May 17, a fresh wave of strong winds and brief but intense showers left four more people dead—three crushed when an under-construction house caved in at Paharganj, and another in Prahladpur, killed by a collapsing wall.