South Delhi car lifted mid-air, stuck on uprooted tree as storm batters national capital

Hindustan Times

02-05-2025

A fierce thunderstorm accompanied by heavy rain swept across Delhi-NCR in the early hours of Friday, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. Among the hardest-hit areas was Sheikh Sarai, where multiple vehicles were crushed under falling trees, and dramatic visuals of the chaos surfaced online.
Also read: Delhi sees chaos as rain, thunderstorms cause waterlogging, flight delays
A video shared on social media platform X captured a jaw-dropping moment when a massive tree was uprooted by the storm's intensity. The tree's roots were so deeply embedded and forcefully pulled from the ground that a nearby parked car was seen suspended halfway into the air. As the tree toppled, its branches collapsed onto another vehicle parked close by, crushing it partially.
According to Delhi Police, four people were killed and another injured when a tree collapsed on a tubewell room in a farm located in Kharkhari village, Dwarka.
At Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport, flight operations were severely affected. Officials reported that at least three flights were diverted and more than 100 delayed due to the storm.
'The adverse weather conditions in the city had led to delays in both arriving and departing flights. Moreover, three flights had to be diverted,' an airport official said.
The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) had issued a yellow alert the previous day but upgraded it to a red alert early Friday morning, warning of wind speeds reaching 70–80 km/h.
Also read: 'Gurgaon is water park today': Video of waterlogging surfaces as heavy rain batters Delhi-NCR
IMD senior scientist RK Jenamani said there was a drop in temperature by 7-10°C at most places after the storm hit the city.
"Due to the storm, temperature fell by around 7-10°C at most places. For instance, at Lodhi road, it fell from 28.2°C at 5:15 am to 20.7°C at 5:30 am. Similarly at Jafarpur, it dropped from 28.4°C at 19°C," Jenamani said, stating the last time Delhi recorded a heavier 24-hour spell of rain in May was 2021. "This was when we had 119.3mm of rainfall in a single day on May 20, 2021, in association with the movement of the remnants of the cyclone Tauktae," he said.