Windstorm, rain lash Peshawar

PESHAWAR: A heavy windstorm and rain lashed the provincial metropolis on Thursday, turning the weather pleasant and bringing the mercury down.

The heavy winds in the afternoon uprooted trees and brought down some signboards in parts of the city.

In one such incident, an old tree fell on the Sher Shah Suri Road near the Cantt Railways Station and disrupted the traffic on the one lane of the busy road.

The motorists and motorcyclists approaching from the city side had to use the other lane of the road as the tree continued to block the traffic for quite some time.

The Rescue 1122 staff reached the site and cut the tree into pieces with a saw machine.

They removed the parts of the fallen tree from the road and the traffic resumed after almost a two-hour break.

The windstorm was followed by a heavy rain. Several areas in the city, cantonment, and University Road were inundated as rainwaters flooded the roads after the drains were blocked.

Rainwater accumulated near the Suray Pull, Bacha Khan Chowk and at the entrance to the Malak Saad Shaheed Flyover near the Lady Reading Hospital Balahisar Gate.

The road next to the Peshawar Museum and the Governor’s House was under rainwater as was the portion of the road near the Peshawar Press Club.

The commuters on Nauthia road up to Kohat faced difficulties as the road which had been dug to replace the gas pipeline had been left in poor condition by the contractors. The rainwater filled the dug-up portion, troubling the commuters.

The crossing at the defunct railway track in Gulbarg No1 was another trouble point for the residents and the commuters. Even a brief rain inundated the road and this was the case yesterday as well. While the motorists and motorcyclists were facing difficulties in crossing the inundated road, pedestrians were seen requesting the vehicle owners to give them lift and help them cross the flooded road.

There were complaints of power supply disruption in some areas due to the heavy winds and rain. Several localities remained without electricity supply for hours on the Kohat and Charsadda roads.

It is worth mentioning here that the National Disaster Management Authority had already issued an alert a day before and warned of urban flooding due to monsoon rains.