Rain kills 18 people, injures 35 in Delhi and Gurgaon

GURGAON/ NEW DELHI: Eighteen people were killed and at least 35 injured in separate accidents during Saturday night’s rain and thunder squall in the national capital area.

At least 17 labourers were killed and 30 injured when a wall of an under-construction warehouse in Farooq Nagar, on the outskirts of Gurgaon, collapsed.

Policemen at the site said the wall fell on the temporary huts of the labourers. Families of the victims rued no Gurgaon district administration official came to their rescue for hours.

The police have registered a case against Kalpana Constructions, the private agency that is building the warehouse. They said the wall collapsed because its width did not correspond to its height.

The rain also claimed the life of eight-year-old Soni and injured another five people, all of whom died when the roof of their house in Mohan Garden, west Delhi, caved in.
The showers were accompanied by lightning and 100-km-per-hour winds, fire brigade officials said on Sunday. Reports of uprooting of trees and power cuts were also received from several areas. The met office had recorded a rainfall of 7.7 mm till Sunday morning.

The rain, however, brought down the mercury, giving relief to citizens. The minimum temperature recorded on Sunday morning was 24.7 degrees Celsius, two notches below normal.

The weather may remain the same in north and north-west India over the next two to three days, the weatherman said, attributing the change to a cyclonic circulation over Rajasthan.