30-minute storm leaves Nagpur battered

NAGPUR: A major storm accompanied with blinding rain on Sunday afternoon battered the city and adjoining areas. Over 54 big trees were uprooted damaging houses, vehicles and electric infrastructure causing city's fire and emergency services scrambling all over the city. At least 17 electric and streetlight poles collapsed causing blackouts in many areas.
Along with traffic on road, rail traffic too came to standstill for sometime. Farmers, especially orange growers, were in a shock as initial reports indicated massive damage to the crop. The storm also found echo in meeting of state cabinet with chief minister Prithviraj Chavan asking the district administration to conduct an immediate survey and file a report.
It was partially cloudy since morning but there was no indication of things to come. Light winds began at around 3.40 pm and increased to storm level within minutes. In the next 20 minutes or so, the storm left the city shattered. Strong winds tore down hoardings while rain flooded the streets. Reports said winds lashed city at over 80km per hour in city and over 100 km per hour in rural areas of the district.
Hundreds of houses, mainly in slum areas, were damaged due to strong winds and falling trees. Many had their roofs blown away. Fortunately, no casualty was reported in the city.
Chief fire officer Rajendra Uchake said over 100 calls came after the storm. "54 incidents of tree felling were reported. Department attended 44 calls immediately. Traffic was cleared by cutting down and removing felled trees. Major impact was in city's outskirts and Central Nagpur. A big tree came down on three vehicles at Shankar Nagar square. Wall along the road reportedly collapsed on couple of dwelling units at slum near Seminary Hills," he said.
Around 8-10 electric poles bent down in Mahal near Chitnis Park and Ganjipeth area disrupting power supply. Four electric poles also bent on Ramanagar to Bhaji Prabhu Nagar road. Power supply was disrupted in many areas in almost all parts of the city. It was gradually restored in the next few hours but socme pockets remained without power well into the night. Hoardings, signboards on shops and pandals were extensively damaged. Entire streets were filled with garbage and branches of trees leaving a huge challenge before the NMC health department.
Reports from rural areas said orange, wheat and chana crops suffered damaged at Katol, Kalmeshwar, Saoner, Kamptee and Narkhed tehsils. Traffic on Nagpur to Saoner and Warud road was disrupted for long due to fallen trees. EGS minister Nitin Raut told TOI, "Survey of damage to property, infrastructure and crop will be conducted. Government will act after receiving the report," he said.
MORE RAIN LIKELY
For all its ferocity, the city received just 1 mm rainfall till 5.30 pm and 1.7 mm by 8.30 pm. More rain are expected over the next two days, met office said. The wind speed during the storm was as strong as 25 knots. The minimum temperature of the day was three degrees above normal at 19.2 degrees Celsius and the maximum temperature a degree below normal at 31.2 degrees.
"The rainfall has been caused by two cyclonic circulations, one over east MP and Chhattisgarh that extends to 2.1 km above sea level and another one over North Madhya Maharashtra and Gujarat. These two phenomena have together caused moisture incursion that resulted in rain," said a met official.
RAIL TRAFFIC HIT
Rail traffic was thrown out of gear with over a half a dozen trains getting delayed by more than one to two hours. The trains delayed included Howrah-Pune Azad Hind Exp, Howrah-Porbandar Exp, Thiruvananthapuram-Indore Ahilyanagri Exp, Vidarbha Exp, Yashwantpur-Nizamuddin Sampark Kranti Ex and Howrah-Kurla LTT Express. Railway sources said Andhra Pradesh Exp was also detained at the station for over 20 minutes. Senior divisional electrical engineer (tractions distribution) Namdeo Rabde confirmed that some steel sheds had collapsed on the over head electrical equipment causing disruption.
Meanwhile, poor quality work by Central Railway engineering department was exposed when almost 40% of the aluminium panel installed at the eastern side collapsed due to strong winds on Sunday evening. The work was completed at the cost of over Rs 50 lakh last year.
POWER SUPPLY DISRUPTED
Power supply affected in many areas. MSEDCL registered 45 complaints of pole disruptions mainly from Ishwar Nagar, Shrikrishna Nagar, Bhavani Nagar, Hiwri Nagar, Wathoda. Ashok Kumre from MSEDCL said 25 breakdowns were registered on 11kv power lines of which 18 were attended and work on remaining was on. Four poles came down at Chhatrapati Nagar leaving surrounding areas in the dark. Pockets in Buldi, Ramdaspeth, Shankar Nagar, Dharampeth under MSEDCL had no power supply till late night.