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© DNAPankaj Shukla, Piyush Patel
City gets flooded again; more in store, warns Met.

In a matter of just two hours, Ahmedabad found itself inundated after recording 5 inches of rainfall on Friday. The clouds began gathering early in the afternoon but it was around 2 pm when it started raining.

Earlier, the city had recorded heavy rains in the early morning too. And with the Met department predicting intermittent but heavy rainfall for Ahmedabad in the next 24 hours, this will be the second consecutive rainy weekend for the city.

It was the central zone that received highest rainfall at 30 mm followed by the east and west zone that recorded 27 and 23 mm respectively. Interestingly, the west and central zone received one inch of rainfall in a period of just 30 minutes leaving several roads water-logged.

Due to heavy rains, the Akhbarnagar and Mithakali underpass were closed down. The latter was opened after an hour but the Akhbarnagar underpass continued to be out of bounds for traffic.

Amdavadis who have got used to the intermittent rains meanwhile welcomed it despite the traffic chaos and water-logging. Ashutosh Mishra, a chartered accountant, had to cancel his client meeting due to the showers.

"It was a sunny day today so I was out meeting a client at an open cafe when it started raining. I called off the meeting despite being in the middle of it and enjoyed rains from inside my office with a mug of coffee," said Mishra.

Nirav Bajoria, a finance manager, decided to relive his childhood days by getting drenched. "I could have escaped the rain as it was my weekly off. Instead, I went on my terrace and got drenched before proceeding for a hot cup of coffee and bhutta (corn crop)," said Bajoria.

Thanks to the heavy rain the water-level in the Vasna Barrage has gone up to 129.5 ft. Eight doors of the barrage have been opened by 3 ft while several villages located downstream have already been issued an alert.

According to the GSDMA, the city has so far received 743mm of its average 769 mm of rainfall. This means the city has received 96.56 per cent of its average rainfall so far.