New Delhi: The national capital will receive light rain on Monday afternoon and evening, the India Meteorological Department said. While the morning was clear after New Delhi was hit by a massive dust storm on Sunday evening which threw normal life out of gear, a Met official said the evening will be cloudy.
The minimum temperature was recorded at 23 degrees Celsius on Monday, the maximum temperature is likely to be 37 degrees Celsius. The humidity at 8:30 AM on Monday was 60 percent.
The death toll due to Sunday's storm has reached 62 with 39 people killed in Uttar Pradesh alone. "Thirty-nine people have died and 53 injured due to the storm. We have been ordered to give compensation in next 24 hours to all of them," said Sanjay Kumar, UP Relief Commissioner.
The thunderstorms accompanied with squall hit many parts of India, including Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Delhi-NCR. According to the IMD parts of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi-NCR, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Odisha are likely to witness thunderstorm and squall on Monday too. The warnings are valid for the next 72 hours from Monday morning. said a Met official.
The storm and light rain on Sunday evening brought down the temperature in the Delhi-National Capital Region but also resulted in widespread destruction of property and the death of at least two people.
Air, rail and metro traffic was affected in and around Delhi following the dust storms and thunderstorms. At Delhi Indira Gandhi International Airport the dust storm with wind speed exceeding 100 kmph led to almost 70 flights being diverted to other airports.
The IGI airport was closed to air traffic for almost two and half hours due to wind shear. Flight operations resumed around 9 pm. Aviation experts said wind shear means a rapid change in winds over a short horizontal distance experienced by aircraft, conditions that can cause a rapid change in lift, and thus the altitude, of the plane.
Train services were affected on the Nizamuddin-Palwal section of Northern Railway after trees were uprooted and fell on railway tracks. At a few places, overhead electrical equipment was also damaged by broken branches. The Kalka-New Delhi Shatabdi Express was stopped at Sonepat station. But services on the Delhi-Howrah section was unaffected and all the Rajdhani trains.
