Ghaziabad authorities act after child drowned, man electrocuted after heavy rain

The heavy rain that lashed Ghaziabad on Thursday brought not just waterlogging but also tragedy, exposing glaring lapses in the city's civic preparedness and the hollowness of the administration's claims about proper upkeep and monsoon readiness.

In the Sarvodaya Nagar area of the city, authorities sprang into action and initiated the clearing of flood drains only after a three-year-old girl drowned in the rainwater that had accumulated in the lane right outside her home.

According to her family, the toddler had stepped outside to play while it was raining and accidentally slipped into the waterlogged alley.

Speaking to India Today's sister channel, Aaj Tak, Sumit Kumar, the girl's father, said he was out to buy some household items when the incident took place. When he returned, he found his daughter's body floating in the water.

He said the child was declared brought dead by the doctors when she was rushed to the hospital. He said that he has been promised a new house by the administration for the loss of his daughter's life.

Kumar and other residents of the locality claimed that no immediate action was taken by the civic authorities to drain out the accumulated rainwater even after the girl's death, and it got drained out on its own.

Locals alleged that nearly three feet of water had accumulated in the lane when the fatal incident occurred. Several houses in the locality are as much as four feet below ground level.

The owner of one such house said it had been built about 40 years ago, when it stood nearly two feet above the road. However, repeated road levelling and resurfacing over the years gradually raised the street level, leaving the house about two feet below it.

MAN ELECTROCUTED IN INDIRAPURAM

About 10 kilometres away from Sarvodaya Nagar, waterlogging due to the incessant rain claimed another life when a young man got electrocuted in Indirapuram.

The incident, which took place at around 2.50 pm, was captured on a nearby CCTV camera. It showed two men walking out of a park. Bablu, who was walking ahead, exited the gate and, seconds later, collapsed near the transformer there.

The second man immediately turned and ran back, apparently realising that Bablu was suffering an electric shock.

According to eyewitnesses, his body was lying in the rainwater for about eight to 10 minutes before the electricity supply was cut off, and it was fished out by authorities.

Bablu, who worked as a security guard, was reportedly about to get married soon. The police have registered his family's complaint and the post-mortem report is awaited.

Following the tragic incident, the transformer and the park gate have now been completely barricaded and closed to prevent further accidents.

A flood drain passing from under the transformer was found choked by silt on one side in Aaj Tak's ground report. The water unable to flow through the drain is suspected to have caused waterlogging at the spot.

Water was found accumulated in the adjoining park even on Friday, a day after the incident took place.

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