Monsoon woes: Passengers battle knee-deep water at Delhi airport

Incessant heavy rains have led to heavy water-logging at the Indira Gandhi Airport (IGI) airport in New Delhi, causing inconvenience to passengers who waded through knee deep water while the baggage handling system was left crippled.The monsoon arrived in Delhi a fortnight ahead of schedule, with the national capital recording around 36.6 mm rainfall. But the airport witnessed an "unprecedented" rainfall of 117.8 mm in four and half hours, between 1 pm and 5.30 pm.The airport experienced 62.8 mm of rains between 1 pm and 2.30 pm and 55 mm between 2.30 pm and 5.30 pm.[caption id="attachment_876089" align="alignleft" width="380"] Workers struggling to get rid of water on the terminal: PTI[/caption]The amount of rain water, combined with poor drainage in the surrounding area and the topography of the airport led to a back flow of water towards the Terminal 3 of the airport."Incessant rains, poor drainage system in surrounding area and comparative low elevation of the airport led to back flow of water, which led to flooding at terminal area," an airport official said.Services at the domestic arrivals were the most affected due to flooding which forced airport authorities to close the functioning of four baggage belts, causing inconvenience to passengers.Ironically T3 had just won an award for being the second best airport in the world.According to sources, there was knee deep water near the exit of Airport Express Metro and passengers had to wade through it to reach the terminal.Earlier, the airport had witnessed similar incident of flooding in September 2011, when airport area received 115.6 mm of rains in just 75 minutes, between 2.30 pm and 3.45 pm.As the water entered the terminal building, the airport operator Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) pressed emergency workers into action to drain the water out of the terminal."The rain water had entered in international and domestic arrival halls. The waterlogging affected normal passengers movement," a source said"There was heavy waterlogging between 2-5 pm inside the arrival halls of the airport," the source said.The situation was brought under control only late in the evening.Sources said that DIAL had written to civic agencies like PWD and municipal body for providing adequate drainage in the surrounding areas but the work started late and airport had to face such a situation.PTI