Months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi officially opened a renovation project, the roof of a terminal building at New Delhi international airport partially collapsed in heavy rains early on Friday, killing one person, according to rescuers.
Online images appeared of cars crushed beneath enormous steel girders at the airport’s Terminal 1 departure plaza. This was one of the several projects that Modi officially announced in March, just before the national election.
Only domestic planes operate out of this terminal, and according to airport officials, all departures from there had been cancelled up until early afternoon.
They stated in an online statement that “a portion of the canopy… collapsed around 5 am due to heavy rain since early this morning.”
“Emergency personnel are working to provide all necessary assistance and medical aid to those affected.”
It also stated that arrivals at Terminal 1 and other terminals were running normally.
“One person is dead and eight others are injured. The head of Delhi Fire Services, Atul Garg, said AFP that the rescue efforts had concluded.
Under Modi, infrastructure development has been a top focus. One of the nation’s hallmark projects is the Delhi airport, which bears the name of his deceased predecessor, Indira Gandhi.
However, concerns about safety and building regulations in the nation still exist. When the road tunnel they were building on in Uttarakhand collapsed last year, more than forty workers were left stranded for almost two weeks until help arrived.
Additionally, when a railway bridge that was being built in the northeastern state of Mizoram fell, at least eighteen workmen who were working on it were murdered.
Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu, the minister of civil aviation, told reporters on the spot: “We are taking this situation very…To be clear, the building that collapsed here was an old structure that was built in 2009, and the building that Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated is on the opposite side.
Even though Modi only became prime minister a few years later, opposition leaders attacked him following the Friday episode.
According to a spokesperson for the Congress party, Rahul Gandhi’s organisation surprised everyone by winning all of the seats in parliament, forcing Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party into a coalition with allies. This was known as a “inauguration spree” before of the polls.
On the social networking site X, Gandhi’s sister Priyanka, who is also a prominent member of the Congress, wrote, “Will the Chief Inauguration Minister take responsibility for this poor construction work and this corrupt model?”
Another facility that Modi launched, the Jabalpur airport in Madhya Pradesh, saw a portion of its roof collapse on Friday, according to reports, but no one was hurt.
After a protracted period of heatwaves and oppressively high temperatures, the yearly monsoon finally made its way to the Indian capital, Delhi, where torrential rains have fallen in recent days.
The city has come to a complete stop due to the heavy rains. According to photos posted by the police, workers are seen cutting trees and assisting those who are stuck in flooded regions.
