Delhi floods: Schools, colleges, non-essential government offices shut

Schools, colleges, and non-essential government offices will be shut until Sunday amid floods in Delhi due to swelling Yamuna waters, officials said as the river was flowing at 208.48 metres at 8am on Thursday and was likely to swell further.

The surging water levels in the river breached a 45-year-old landmark to touch a record high of 208.08 metres at 11pm on Wednesday and marooned low-lying neighbourhoods and triggered heightened evacuation efforts.

In a tweet, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said all schools have been closed in areas flooded due to swelling Yamuna waters.

Prakash Rajput, a resident of civil lines, said his sons, aged 9 and 14, had already gone to school by the time the announcement was made. “The children called me from their teachers’ phone around 10.30am and asked me to pick them up because the school was flooded,” he said. “There was chaos at the school... flooded inside and around ...Teachers and children were stressed...”

Delhi Parents’ Association president Aprajita Gautam said the announcement should have come earlier because schoolchildren leave between 6 and 7am for their schools. “Many schools are also having exams; so parents would be compelled to send their children to school despite the floods.”

Kejriwal appealed to all volunteers, councillors, and lawmakers to visit relief camps and provide all possible support to the displaced people. He said the water level of Yamuna was increasing continuously and had inundated roads around it while asking people to avoid them. He added people were being evacuated from flooded areas. “The people living there are requested to cooperate with the administration. Saving lives of people is most important.”

Officials said the Yamuna was flowing three metres above the danger level (205.33 metres) on Thursday morning. The level on Wednesday broke the previous record of 207.49 on September 6, 1978.

Monastery Market and Majnu ka Tila in north Delhi, Mayur Vihar Phase I and Geeta Colony in east Delhi, and multiple portions on Ring Road near Kashmere Gate in old Delhi were among the places inundated on Wednesday. Some sections of the Ring Road and Bhairon Marg in central Delhi were closed on Wednesday evening.

As many as 16,500 people from six districts were evacuated on Wednesday and housed in 2,500 relief camps as Kejriwal called an emergency meeting and wrote to Union home minister Amit Shah seeking his intervention in stopping the release of water from Hathni Kund barrage in Haryana, about 230km upstream. The Yamuna level is directly linked to the release of water in the barrage.

The quantum of the water being sent downstream from Hathni Kund was considerably lower than earlier because rivers upstream in Himachal were no longer in spate.