Heavy rain leads to flooding at Ahmedabad airport, officials say ‘operations not affected’
A statement from the airport authorities said the city received “159 mm of rainfall in just 4 hours… which is the highest amount of rainfall recorded in a single day in this season”.
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Airport authorities said special measures were taken to drain out the water completely by 2 am. (Screenshot/@NarundarM) Heavy rainfall in Ahmedabad late on Saturday evening briefly led to flooding at the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International (SVPI) Airport in the city. Airport authorities said special measures were taken to drain out the water completely by 2 am. It added that operations at the airport continued “without any major disruptions”.
An official statement from the airport said, “The evening of 22nd of July, 2023 saw unprecedented heavy rainfall from 7 pm causing flooding across the city of Ahmedabad and bringing life to a standstill, leading to areas around the airport to be waterlogged due to unprecedented rain in short duration.”
It went on to say that the region received “159 mm of rainfall in just 4 hours (from 5.30 pm to 8.30 pm) which is the highest amount of rainfall recorded in a single day in this season. Between 6 pm and 7 pm alone, the city received 54 mm of rain hence the first one hour received maximum impact.”
This is Adani managed Airport, Ahmedabad, Gujarat pic.twitter.com/c8XRhI1v54
— Punit Juneja (@punitjuneja) July 22, 2023
“To give a perspective, till this Sunday morning, the city had received 472 mm of rain for this season. Thus one-fifth of the season’s rainfall fell in only 4 hours,” the statement added. It stated that as part of Ahmedabad international airport’s monsoon contingency plan, a number of initiatives were taken for passengers and to drain out the water. This included activation of support services to reduce inconveniences to passengers, arrangement of special coaches to assist passengers to reach the drop-off area, etc.
Major #waterlogging at #Ahmedabad airport. Disembarkation took 40 minutes. Connecting flight delayed by two hours already! 🥲 pic.twitter.com/Xu7YhO1k63
— 𝚅𝚒𝚗𝚎𝚎𝚝𝚊 𝙳𝚠𝚒𝚟𝚎𝚍𝚒 (@VineetaDwivedi) July 22, 2023
While the Ahmedabad-Ranchi flight was diverted due to visibility issues, none of the flights got cancelled despite heavy rainfall, an official said. Around 200 people worked in tandem to bring the situation under control, they added.
Ahmedabad airport rain pic.twitter.com/O8c57fn2Oc
— Tradvesting (@Tradvesting) July 22, 2023
The statement added, “Terminal 4, which has no passenger activities, experienced some water logging issues and was immediately addressed. T4 has some offices w.r.t. CNS and other activities…By 2.00 am, all water was drained out, and the situation was normalised outside the terminal building and other areas.”
As per the statement, as preventive measures, “…the airport operator has further increased resources, including special manpower, increased pumps to dewater the drains, and additional drains are being created to address such excessive rainfall in the near future.”
An airport official said, “There have been stories in the past of the runway getting flooded and causing flight disturbance. Last year in April we laid 8.5 km of drainage at the airport to ensure the runway does not get hampered and this year, it worked as none of the runways were flooded.”
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