Part of roof collapses at India’s busiest airport after heavy rains
Part of the roof of a terminal at India’s busiest airport collapsed Friday morning during heavy thunderstorms and rain, killing at least one person and injuring eight, a fire official said.
Indian Minister of Civil Aviation said in a social media post that rescue operations were underway at Terminal 1 of New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport on Friday morning. Airport officials said the collapse occurred around 5 a.m. local time in the terminal’s departure area and all departures from the terminal were suspended. Terminal 1 handles domestic flights.
A taxi driver was killed when a pillar holding up part of the roof fell on his car, said Ravinder Singh, a Delhi Fire Brigade official. Eight others were hospitalized with injuries, he said.
Photos and videos from the scene on social media and on local television showed much of the overhang outside the airport wedged into the sidewalk of what appeared to be the pick-up and drop-off area outside the terminal. Several cars appeared crushed under collapsed pillars.
Delhi was hit by near-record rainfall in the 24 hours leading up to Friday morning, with nearly 23 centimetres of rain falling, according to the Indian Meteorological Department.
According to FlightAware, a flight information tracking site, more than 40 flights were canceled from the airport around 1 p.m. Arrivals and departures for Indigo and Spice Jet, major budget airlines, have been moved to other terminals, according to the airport.
The terminal has recently been renovated and expanded to reach a capacity of 40 million passengers per year. according to a press release from the airport.
India’s monsoon season can test public infrastructure, including bridges and underpasses, in which the country has invested heavily in recent years. In the past 10 days, at least four bridges Houses under construction or just completed have collapsed in the central Indian state of Bihar.
On Friday, opposition leaders accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of hastily unveiling the expansion of the airport terminal where the collapse occurred in March.
“All this false bravado and rhetoric was just for the quick enjoyment of pre-election ribbon cutting ceremonies!” Mallikarjun Kharge, chairman of the opposition Indian National Congress, wrote on X.
However, the civil aviation minister told reporters on Friday that the collapse had occurred in an older part of the airport, and not the recently expanded section.
Another piece of infrastructure Mr Modi is advocating is a tunnel and underpasses for commuters in Delhi, completed by 2022. Less than two years later the structure is full of cracks, flooding and seepage, endangering commuters.
