Rains lash many parts of north India, lightning kills 9 in UP

New Delhi, Sep 11: Rains lashed several parts of north India, including Uttar Pradesh where nine persons were killed after being struck by lightning, even as weather conditions improved in flood-ravage Jammu and Kashmir today.

In the national capital, rains brought down the mercury by seven notches. According to a MeT department official, the day temperature was recorded as 29.1 degrees Celsius, five notches below the season's average and seven degrees less from yesterday's maximum. The minimum settled at 25.2 degrees.

The Safdarjung observatory, which provides the official reading for the city, recorded 15.2-mm rainfall, while Lodhi Road observatory registered 18.3-mm rains and the Ridge weather station 50.4-mm. Areas under Palam and Ayanagar observatories received 0.3-mm rainfall.

The rains, however, pushed up the humidity level, which oscillated between 92 and 83 per cent during the day. Light to moderate rains occurred at a few places in Uttar Pradesh, including Fatehpur district where nine persons were killed after being hit by lightning in different areas.

The deceased included three children, police said. According to the Lucknow MeT office, Kaimganj and Lalitpur recorded rainfall measuring 10-cm each; followed by Aligarh 9-cm; Bareilly and Narrora 6-cm each; and Nighasan, Lalganj, Iglas and Jalabad 5-cm each.

Several other areas of the state also received rains since yesterday afternoon, the MeT officials said, adding the Southwest Monsoon was normal over Uttar Pradesh.

Other northern states like Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana also received rainfall. Though, according to forecasts, isolated rains may occur in states like Rajasthan, Delhi, Punjab and Haryana tomorrow, the MeT department has ruled out the possibility of heavy showers in the next 2-3 days in Jammu and Kashmir, where the floods have claimed at least 250 lives in the past week.

PTI