This is tragic — part of the roof collapsed today at India’s biggest airport, leading to a fatality and several injuries, plus lots of damage. This will have major implications for the airport for quite some time.
In this post:
Delhi Airport’s tragic, fatal roof collapse
Delhi dealt with some awful weather last night and this morning. The airport received around 148.5mm of rain over three hours early this morning, and around 228.1mm of rain over 24 hours. This is more rain than the airport usually gets in the entire month of June, and it’s the most rain the airport has seen in a 24-hour period since 1936.
While this caused flooding across the city, we saw the worst of it at Terminal 1 at New Delhi Indira Gandhi International Airport (DEL). Specifically, at around 5AM this morning, the roof in the roadway by the domestic departures area collapsed, leading to at least one fatality, and at least eight injuries.
A taxi was crushed under a metal pillar at the entrance to the terminal, and that’s also where the fatality happened. Several other vehicles were crushed as well. As you’d expect, this caused the terminal to be evacuated, and flights to be delayed for an extended period of time, and moved to other terminals.
As of the time of this post, over 40% of flights at the airport today have either been delayed or canceled, according to data from FlightAware.
This collapse came just months after an airport refurbishment project was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. However, the part of the terminal that collapsed was reportedly part of an older building that opened in 2009.
Delhi Airport compensating deceased & injured
Well here’s something… unusual. Delhi Airport has taken to Twitter/X to already reveal the compensation that victims from this will get. The airport says that the family of the deceased will receive ~24,000 USD, while the injured will receive ~3,600 USD. That seems… rather random… and fast? Are these some sort of pre-determined amounts, or how did they come up with this?
The airport has issued a longer statement, emphasizing that the primary cause for the collapse was the heavy rainfall. Yes, of course there was a lot more rain than usual, but I don’t think that justifies the roof collapsing, or else the area would have presumably been closed.
Hopefully a thorough, independent investigation is performed into what caused this.
Bottom line
Delhi Airport had the most rain it has seen in a 24-hour period in nearly 90 years. Part of the airport’s roof collapsed, causing cars to be crushed, and leading to one fatality and several injuries. This is tragic, and hopefully action is taken so that something like this doesn’t happen again.
What do you make of this Delhi Airport roof collapse?
As the climate crisis spirals further and further out of control, freak weather events like this will only become more common.
And now the canopy collapses at Rajkot airport a day after Delhi T-1's tragic incident!
….referring to the wealth and resources amassed by the British empire…
The Howrah bridge never fell, and is still standing after 100+ years
Another airport canopy fell due to heavy rains in the state of Gujarat. Wonder if there’s a correlation between the designs or builders, or did the structural engineers not consider a sufficiently high stress load? Wonder how much rain above the average rainfall are they receiving. Obviously no structure is disaster proof but not sure how these structures are failing due to rains. Generator structures are designed to prevent water logging upon them.
I guess you can never rush to judge until an investigation is completed but hmmmm … it’s a massive roof at an airport it should be able to handle rain
Hopefully the roof of this website doesn't collapse under the weight of all the mobile ads.
You could donate money to this website to make sure it could handle the weight.
Put money where your mouth is.
Lol Ben does not need donations to keep this website afloat. This blog is literally about flaunting his wealth and privilege to fly exclusively in First and Business class as well as staying in luxury hotels.
LOL this is so true hahahah the ads show up everywhere and the page sometimes crashes on my iPhone cause it’s constantly trying to load videos and the random pop ups
Please fix the title. The roof collapsed due to bad construction or other causes. The rain was so much within parameters that no other roof in Delhi collapsed.
According to Trump, another "Sh.. Hole" Country!
What an incredibly rude and ignorant remark upon the death of so many. If you had any intelligence or pride you would beg for forgiveness.
Shame on you.
Another freak airport incident. First the Idaho hangar incident resulting in the loss of three lives, then the fellow who fell into the aircraft engine in Schipol and now this. What a year and we still have half of it yet to go. Hope they get it sorted well but quickly.
Sadly, he didn't "fall into" it, it was deemed a suicide.
According to the investigators: he intentionally jumped in. :(
What a disgusting comment.
This incidence reminds me of the conversation that I had with a Bhutanese guide in late 2018. He said that in the early time of the country's infrastructural development and expansion, the royalty family had to terminate contracts with Indian companies, due to various structural issues, and hired Japanese companies to take over unfinished projects and began new projects. India has big influence in the areas, from currency to cuisine.
Just poor construction a structure like that should not collapse neither in heavy rain or in hurricane winds if properly build. The lawsuit its going to be huge.
Standing structures are designed to prevent accumulation of rain on them. Not sure how water accumulated atop this structure overcoming the stress limit. Hard to say but just seeing the pictures how the structure failed but seems to be due to buckling from excess load of water collecting on the roof like in a tub.
"228.1m of rain over 24 hours"
That's a lot. Almost a quarter kilometer of rain
That's impossible and likely a typo. Here's what Reuters says:
"About 148.5 millimetres (5.85 inches) of rain fell over three hours on the airport area in the early morning, more than the average for all of June, according to the national weather office."
https://www.reuters.com/world/india/roof-collapses-airport-indian-capital-departures-cancelled-2024-06-28/
Saying this as a civil engineer, no structure should collapse like this due to rain; if designed and executed properly.
Engineering standards have been developed to include enough safety for events like this.
Airports (and most other modern structures) are designed to:
1) Effectively dissipate the rain falling onto the roof (so rainfall intensity should not be an issue), and
2) Safely carry the load of whatever standing water still present on the roof.
It appears that either or both of the above have failed either at the design part or the execution part, or both.
Heads must roll at this. Modi Government's hurry to inaugurate...
Airports (and most other modern structures) are designed to:
1) Effectively dissipate the rain falling onto the roof (so rainfall intensity should not be an issue), and
2) Safely carry the load of whatever standing water still present on the roof.
It appears that either or both of the above have failed either at the design part or the execution part, or both.
Heads must roll at this. Modi Government's hurry to inaugurate new structures should not be at the cost of quality and engineering safety.
a little correction, this terminal of DEL or even all the terminals for that matter was not build under the reign of Modi government. in fact DEL has not seen an update in more then a decade, which is why it needs a new terminal. either way it was a poor design from the start and there must be someone liable for this failure.
DEL T1 expansion was just inaugurated a few months ago in the presence of Modi himself. Granted the collapse did not happen to the new construction. Regardless, thoughts are with the loved ones of the deceased. We were there just last week returning to Delhi from business trips.
The Modi machine is more into public grandstanding with highly-visible rapid building of physical objects rather than into building a less visible but much needed infrastructure of a non-corrupt, non-partisan, apolitical robust safety inspection infrastructure not subject to the whims of the Modi machine and his fellow travelers. But given the Modi machine has even corrupted the Indian Supreme Court, it’s a given that the other institutions of government and bureaucracy are not free from...
The Modi machine is more into public grandstanding with highly-visible rapid building of physical objects rather than into building a less visible but much needed infrastructure of a non-corrupt, non-partisan, apolitical robust safety inspection infrastructure not subject to the whims of the Modi machine and his fellow travelers. But given the Modi machine has even corrupted the Indian Supreme Court, it’s a given that the other institutions of government and bureaucracy are not free from the corrupting influence of the ruling party.
It’s amusing watching Praful Patel who was civil aviation minister under a previous government and is now the NCP/Ajit Pawar factional supporter of the Modi machine.