Trees uprooted in Sunday downpour choke city traffic

Over 40 trees at 20-25 locations were reported to have been uprooted in the rain that lashed the national Capital on Sunday. The respective civic bodies, however, are yet to remove the debris, disrupting traffic movement on many key roads, including south Delhi’s Mehrauli-Badarpur road, CR Park, Chirag Dilli flyover, Greater Kailash, Masjid Moth, CV Raman Marg, and central Delhi’s Shershah Suri Marg.

The uprooted trees lying in the middle of the roads choked the peak-hour traffic, resulting in hours-long jams at most places on Monday.

According to officials of the three municipal corporations, a total of 21 trees in south Delhi, 11 in north, and 10 in east Delhi were uprooted on Sunday.

“We started receiving complaints regarding the trees on Sunday evening itself. While we had removed most of the broken logs by Monday morning, we are still in the process of removing others as some of our staffers are on a leave. Also, we are falling short of the number of vehicles required to carry these trees,” a senior civic official said.

At least eight-nine medium and full-grown trees had fallen on the Shershah Suri Marg, blocking the flow of traffic.

Rajan N Pillai, who works at the Delhi High Court (HC), …read more