At IGI,roof gives in to sharp showers

It is learnt the Ministry of Civil Aviation has taken a serious note of the inconvenience caused and would “pull up” promoter GMR.

A Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) officer said: “There is water in lifts and air-conditioners. Security equipment is not working either.” Passengers said the section of the roof that collapsed also brought down with it a light post.

Chief Operating Officer for developer Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL),Andrew Harrison,said: “Due to high wind velocity and heavy rains,a few sheets of the roof came off in Terminal 1D. This resulted in water entering the terminal building.”

The security and airline staff had to shut down all operations for nearly two hours. Almost all domestic departures were delayed by over two hours and at least 10 incoming flights had to be diverted to other cities like Jaipur and Lucknow.

Harrison said: “The abnormal weather conditions,along with visibility as low as 100 metres,caused over 20 flights to get delayed and ten to be diverted. There was water in some areas of the departure lounge.”

He added: “The leaking roof is not a recurrent phenomenon. It rained day before yesterday in Delhi,but the roof did not leak. But today,74 mm of rain fell in 30 minutes and the wind speed was above 100 kilometres per hour. This combination in terms of intensity is unprecedented.”

Chairman of Airports Authority of India,V P Agarwal,said: “Even if the rainfall was heavy,there is no reason for the roof to fall or leak. This is a very unfortunate incident.” He said: “I am going to inspect the airport myself on Saturday.”

Passenger Vishwajeet Mohanty,who was to take a flight to Bhubaneshwar at 5:30 pm,said: “All boarding and security systems were down and the terminal was a complete mess with water everywhere. Is privatisation and collection of additional development fee by the airport developer justified at the face of such shoddy construction?” Mohanty’s flight finally left at 7.30 pm.

DIAL,the GMR-backed consortium developing and operating the Delhi Airport,has insisted the terminal building,designed by architect Hafeez Contractor,makes maximum use of natural light “reducing dependency on artificial means during the day”.

“There is always a possibility of leaks in any new structure,especially in a large,curved roof with skylights formed from multiple sections,” explained DIAL spokesperson Arun Arora. DIAL now claims to have called in Hafeez Contractor and the project management team to immediately correct affected parts of the roof.

Some semblance of normalcy returned to the airport around 8 pm. Security officials,however,said only half of the security gates could be opened,as could be one-fourth of all boarding gates. There was water too in the domestic arrival terminal.

Headline for the box
Earlier,on April 23 and May 4,portions of the false roof had collapsed near the boarding gate of the terminal. On both occasions it had rained,and the roof had leaked too. Even though DIAL still insists on putting the blame on ‘unprecedented weather’,the new terminal has failed the monsoon test,having reported heavy leaks due to rains on June 30,July 22 and July 28.