LAHORE - A 20 years record of rainfall was broken as the City received 234 mm of rain in 7 to 8 hours of continuous downpour on Thursday. The heavy rains which started in the wee hours inundated the low-lying areas, causing water accumulation on the streets and roads in different neighborhoods. Life in Lahore city came to a standstill for hours as various streets of the city were presenting the view of ponds. The highest rainfall in the city was recorded in Tajpura where about 234mm of rain was recorded. Water entered residential areas and penetrated into the homes. The roof of a house in Islampura collapsed, as a result of which two people were seriously injured. The heavy rain and blowing wind caused more than 200 LESCO feeders across the city to trip. Most of the areas remained without electricity and water for several hours. The downpour which started at 2.15 am between Wednesday and Thursday night, continued till 10.20 am Thursday morning. Afterwards, light rain continued intermittently throughout the day, causing the mercury to drop to 25 degrees celsius. Various roads and streets in many localities turned into ponds and streams with water gushing out of them. The post-rain situation in city’s posh neighbourhoods like Gulberg, Cavalry Ground, Model Town and Defence Housing Authority (DHA) was no different. Also, rainwater accumulated in the nursing hostel and blood bank of the General Hospital Lahore. Patients and their families faced severe difficulties in transportation to nursing hostels and blood banks. Moreover, the roofs of the gynecology block and operation theater began to leak with rainwater. It took the WASA administration several hour hours to drain out water accumulated in different areas of Lahore city including Lakshmi Chowk, Railway station, Tajpura, Dharampura, Lahore Board office, Jinnah Hospital, , Defence, Gaddafi Stadium roundabout, Iqbal Town, Islampura, Shah Jamal, Johar Town, Zahoor Elahi Road, Jail road and many other areas.
The Met officer has predicted that the recent spell of rain was likely to continue till 26th of July. The Met office recorded 63.1mm to 234mm of rain in different areas of Lahore.
According to the data shared by Met office, Jail Road received 74.2mm, Lahore Air¬port, 188.9 mm, Lak¬shmi Chowk 141mm, upper Mall 114mm, Mughal¬pura SDO office 171mm, Head office WASA Gulberg 73mm, Tajpura SDO office 234mm, Nishtar Town Director office 116mm, Chowk Nakhuda 159mm, Pani Wala Talab 131mm, Farrukhabad 119mm, Gulshan-e-Ravi 128mm, Iqbal Town SDO office 63.1mm, Samanabad SDO office 88mm, and Johar Town 121mm of rain. MD WASA Ghafran Ahmed visited various areas of the city like, G-block disposal station and B-block Tajpura scheme disposal station. MD WASA and claimed that all the disposal stations are operational and generators are being used during power outages.