New Delhi: Delhi's torrential Yamuna rose to a mind-boggling 208.48 metres on Thursday morning, flooding neighbouring streets and public and private infrastructure and inflicting severe troubles for those who live near the river.
By Wednesday night, the water level at the Old Railway Bridge had reached 208 metres, and by Thursday at 8 am, it had risen to 208.48 metres. The Central Water Commission describes it as an "extreme situation" and predicts future increases.
With the situation deteriorating every passing hour, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal urged the Centre to intervene and the city police imposed Section 144 of the CrPC in flood-prone areas to prevent unlawful assembly of four or more people and public movement in groups, PTI reported.
Lt Governor V K Saxena has also called a meeting of the Delhi Disaster Management Authority on Thursday. In a letter to Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Kejriwal requested that the water from the Hathnikund barrage in Haryana be released slowly and pointed out that Delhi is set to host the G20 Summit meeting in a few weeks.
“The news of flooding in the capital of the country will not send a good message to the world. Together we will have to save the people of Delhi from this situation,” he said.
There are two major barrages on the Yamuna — Dakpathar in Dehradun and Hathnikund in Yamunanagar, upstream of Delhi. There are no dams on the river and, therefore, most of the monsoon flow remains unutilised, resulting in floods during the season.
Delhi recorded a rapid increase in the Yamuna’s water level over the past three days.
It shot up from 203.14 metres at 11 am on Sunday to 205.4 metres at 5 pm on Monday, breaching the danger mark of 205.33 metres 18 hours earlier than expected.
The river exceeded the evacuation mark of 206 metres Monday night, prompting the relocation of people residing in flood-prone areas to safer locations and the closure of the Old Railway Bridge for road and rail traffic. The water level breached the previous all-time record of 207.49 metres by 1 pm on Wednesday and the 208-metre mark by 10 pm.