Ghaziabad and Noida floods: Heavy rainfall causes waterlogging, cars submerged, schools shut

(Credit: IMD)

Around 350 cars of online cab aggregator Ola parked at a dump yard in Greater Noida were submerged as water overflowing from the swollen Hindon river entered the low-lying area, news agency reported while citing police on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Ola Spokesperson told CNBCTV18: "We have a valid lease agreement with Mahindra First Choice for a vehicle parking yard in Noida. Ola has not received any notice from the government authorities since the inception of our lease agreement in 2020. Any further queries may be directed to the lessor, Mahindra First Choice."

 

Pictures and videos of the dump yard, purportedly showing hundreds of cars submerged by the floodwater, also surfaced on the Internet. Police said the dump yard is located in the floodplains of the Old Sutiyana village in the Ecotech 3 area in Noida.

"In the village, there is a dump yard of Ola's car. The vehicles recovered during the time of COVID-19 pandemic or those vehicles which got damaged are kept at this yard. The number of these vehicles is around 350. It is built on the land of a person named Satpal...," police said in a statement.

They further informed that the caretaker informed the police that these vehicles are currently parked in the dump yard. "The high-level management of Ola was informed about water filling in the dump yard and given a notice by the police to vacate the yard in view of the rising water level of the Hindon river," police added.

Hundreds of people in the Hindon's floodplains were impacted by the overflowing river and moved to shelter homes, the district administration officials said earlier.

District Magistrate Manish Verma, Additional District Magistrate Atul Kumar and Deputy Commissioner of Police Anil Kumar Yadav visited shelter homes in Chhijarsi, Chotpur and Haibatpur to review the situation. Noida MLA Pankaj Singh also visited the impacted villages and interacted with locals as well as government officials.

The district administration also appealed to residents of low-lying areas near the Hindon river to move to safer locations or shelter homes, saying the government is extending all possible help to the people impacted.

On Monday, bodies of two boys were pulled out of the Hindon river on Monday. Adarsh (18) and 16-year-old Krish Mishra had gone missing on Sunday in the Karhera village after it was flooded following an increase in the river's water discharge.

A flood alert had sounded in Noida on Sunday. The Gautam Buddh Nagar administration had issued a flood warning for low-lying regions along the Hindon as water discharge in the river increased.

PTI quoted officials as saying that around 200 people from five villages were evacuated and shifted to shelter homes after the alert was raised on Saturday.

According to an NDTV India report, it is after 40 years that the Hindon river was a surge in its water level. Several projects built in the river are said to be the reason for this rise in water level. Vikrant Sharma, convenor of Hindon Jal Biradari, was quoted by NDTV India as saying, "In the last 10 years, many projects (such as metro bridge, rapid train bridge, platoon bridge and over bridge) were built on the Hindon river...the Hindon river was narrowed to build these projects. Due to this, the flow of the river stopped. As a result, water reached the residential areas."