Thunderstorm creates havoc across Chandigarh

CHANDIGARH: Heavy rainfall and thunderstorm on Wednesday night caused felling of trees, power cuts and waterlogged roads across the city. There were reports of damage to vehicles too in some sectors. It rained from around midnight till early morning. There was heavy rain again on Thursday afternoon.
While the city recorded just 2.4mm rain, thunderstorm caused a greater mess.Airport observatory recorded 46.6mm rainfall on Wednesday night. However, there was no rainfall at Panchkula and Zirakpur. But showers did bring some relief from the heat with maximum temperature dropping 2 degrees below normal. It was 30.6 degrees on Thursday while it was 34 degrees on Wednesday.
The thunderstorm caused branches to fall on the road, thus hampering traffic. Streetlights became non-functional at some places and the power cut lasted for many hours till morning.
President of resident welfare association (RWA) Surinder Sharma of Sector 15 said: "There were fallen trees everywhere in the market." Vice-president of resident welfare association, Sector 8, said: "Heavy rain caused a power cut for around three hours. It was a huge problem for morning walkers."
MP Singh, superintending engineer, electricity department, said: "There was a major power cut in sectors 8, 9, 27,19, 44, 22, 21, 47, 27, 20, 38, 40, 41, 38west, 39, 50, 51, 54, and others." Weathermen have forecast that there would be more thunderstorm in the coming days and the temperature would be 25 degrees on Friday.