Child found facedown, lifeless: Ghaziabad rain kills 3-year-old outside her own house; locals protest

PArts of Uttar Pradesh that neighbour new delhi — Ghaziabad, Noida — were on th severely waterlogged after heavily rain down that started the previous dark and continued without a pause almost throughout the day, leaving several people dead.The rain was attributed to the western quadrant of a low-pressure area, with eastern parts of the NCR, including Noida, Ghaziabad, north and east Delhi, projected to bear the brunt of the system. The heavy rain in Ghaziabad and Noida left at least three people dead, including a three-year-old who died in her own house in Vijay Nagar and was found facedown in water, triggering protest by locals.Child found facedown, lifeless in flooded Ghaziabad houseThe three-year-old girl, Pallavi, drowned after being swept into a waterlogged drain outside her house in Sarvodaya Colony under Vijay Nagar police station limits, HT reported earlier.The girl was found facedown in the water and it is suspected she slipped and drowned in rainwater that had accumulated in the locality, police said.“Locals and girls’ families protested after the incident. The rainwater also entered her house,” the earlier report quoted Upasana Pandey, assistant commissioner of police (ACP), Vijay Nagar, as saying. “She went out in the afternoon, and probably slipped in stagnant water. There was about 2-3 feet of water logged in our locality. After some time, we noticed her face down and pulled her out, rushing her to the hospital. But they declared her dead,” the girl's uncle Anuj Kumar was quoted as saying.Distressing videos surfaced, purportedly showing the family members of the girl trying to revive her. Another death was reported from the Indirapuram area’s Gyan Khand, where a 24-year-old guard, identified as Bablu Kumar, allegedly died after being electrocuted while crossing a park near the private office where he worked.“It is suspected that the man died of electrocution amid heavy rain. Police sent the body for autopsy,” ACP (Indirapuram) Abhishek Srivastava told HT.Police said he worked nearby in Makanpur and was a native of Chhatarpur in Madhya Pradesh.“He worked as a guard at a private office nearby and was crossing the park when the electricity hit him. We took him to a hospital, but he was declared dead,” said his sister-in-law Parvati Devi.Separately, a man’s body was recovered from a drain adjacent to Delhi-Saharanpur Road after he allegedly fell. It is suspected that he did not see the drain on the heavily waterlogged road. His identity has yet to be established, police said.According to the official 24-hour average data by the India Meteorological Department cited in the earlier HT report, Ghaziabad recorded 134mm and 164mm of rain at the Hindon and Kamla Nehru Nagar stations between 8.30am on Wednesday till 8.30am on Thursday.According to IMD, Gautam Budh Nagar received 62mm rainfall in the same period.Experts said the heavy downpour was caused by a low pressure area reaching Delhi. “It travelled from the Bay of Bengal to western Uttar Pradesh during the early morning hours, bringing rain,” said amateur meteorologist Navdeep Dahiya.The Ghaziabad district administration on Thursday declared a holiday for all schools on Friday.