Rain turns weather pleasant in Peshawar, but causes gridlock, outages

PESHAWAR: A heavy rain and thunderstorm hit the provincial capital in the early hours of Wednesday that turned the weather pleasant by bringing down the mercury to 29 degree centigrade.

The showers that started at around 5am continued till 10am and overall 10 millimeter rain was recorded in the Peshawar valley. It continued intermittently but it rained heavily in the scattered places on the outskirts of the provincial capital.

As soon as the rain started majority of the areas plunged into darkness and the power supply to almost all areas that received downpour remained suspended for hours. However, in some areas it was restored after one and a half hour.

Meanwhile, Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco) spokesperson Shaukat Afzal said that a technical fault in a feeder disrupted power supply to parts of the provincial capital.

Shaukat Afzal, director media at the Pesco, said there was a fault in Feeder-5 in the grid-station in Peshawar Saddar due to the heavy rains.

He added that Pesco staff was sent to repair the fault and restore electricity supply to the affected area.

However electricity was restored only in the afternoon and the consumers suffered from morning till afternoon in some localities due to the prolonged power outages.

Abbottabad received 90mm rain, Malam Jabba 44mm, Risalpur 21mm, Cherat 19mm, Pattan 18mm, Kohat 12mm, Saidu Shari 09mm, Balakot and Dir 08mm each while 05mm rainfall was recorded in Parachinar.

Meanwhile, the Met Office issued red alert for the glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) that may hit Chitral and Gilgit-Baltistan while heavy downpour may also cause flash floods and landslides in the vulnerable areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Gilgit-Baltistan and Kashmir.

The rains coupled with a storm during the night had brought the temperature down between 29-24 much to the relief of the people braving hot and humid weather, but later in the day they also suffered due to disruption in the power supply and faulty sewerage system.

As a usual feature of the rainy day in the city, main city roads became waterway causing traffic jams.

Many traffic jams were witnessed at the Amn Chowk, Khyber Road and University Road at Gora Qabristan.

The entrance of Mufti Mehmood Flyover at Shahi Bagh gate had also become a pool of water which became a nuisance for the people.

The spokesperson of Met Office said that good monsoon currents were likely to penetrate in upper and central parts of the country in the next two days.

He added that thunderstorm with isolated heavy rainfalls was expected at a number of places in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, tribal belt, Kashmir and Punjab today (Thursday).

The Met Office also reported that widespread thunderstorm rain with isolated heavy fall accompanied with gusty winds are expected in scattered places in Peshawar, Charsadda, Nowshera, Mardan, Swabi,  Abbottabad, Haripur , Mansehra , Kohistan, Battagram, Torghar, Buner, Upper Dir, Lower Dir, Shangla, Chitral, Kohat, Hangu, Bannu, Lakki Marwat, Dera Ismail Khan, Tank, Swat and Mohmand, Bajaur, North and South Waziristan, Kurram, Khyber and Orakzai agencies.