Drowning in pits, parks and a library: Delhi has seen it all in past 2 years...

New Delhi: The city is no stranger to incidents of drowning — in pits, water parks, underpasses and even inside coaching centres. These took place in the past two years, and in most of the cases, the victims did not receive timely help.On June 28, 2024, three labourers, two of them teenagers, lost their lives after falling into a basement pit on the site of an under-construction building in Vasant Vihar's B Block. A group of labourers had set up three to four makeshift shelters at the edge of the pit. Heavy rain turned the zone into a deadly trap, causing the shelters and some trees to collapse into the 12-foot-deep pit. Out of five who fell into the pit, two clung on to a branch and survived even as water rapidly flooded the pit. Firefighters toiled for 20 hours and fished out the bodies of the deceased.
That same day, rain claimed another life in the city. Digvijay Kumar Chaudhary, a resident of Jaitpur, was on his scooty when he drowned in the Sarita Vihar underpass, which was submerged under five-foot water. He was pulled out in an unconscious state and rushed to hospital, where he was declared dead.Barely a month later, on July 27, a bizarre and tragic incident took place at a coaching centre in Old Rajendra Nagar. A wave generated by an SUV passing through a waterlogged street swept into the library in the basement of the coaching centre, flooding it rapidly and trapping many students. Within minutes, the water had risen to 12 feet. Power in the building was disconnected to prevent electrocution, which also disabled the biometric entry-exit system of the library. Twenty-seven students managed to escape, some climbing to upper floors and terraces of the structure, but three aspiring civil services candidates — Shreya Yadav (25), Tanya Soni (21), and Nevin Dalwin (28) — drowned before National Disaster Response Force divers could rescue them.In June 2025, tragedy struck again, this time at a water park on GT Karnal Road in Alipur. A seven-year-old boy, who was visiting it with his family, waded into a pool unnoticed and drowned.