Lucknow: Three lives were lost in Jaunpur on Wednesday as the monsoon once again tightened its grip on Uttar Pradesh, bringing with it not only pounding rain but also stories of fear, loss and resilience.
In Kanpur, the rain fell so hard that the city seemed to dissolve under water. Lanes turned into streams and markets into shallow ponds as two feet of rainwater gushed unchecked. Stranded commuters abandoned their vehicles to walk home through the flood. “I had my daughter with me on the scooter. We stood in the rain for nearly an hour before a neighbour came with a tractor to pull us out,” said Meena Singh of Govind Nagar. Shopkeepers in the low-lying areas could only watch helplessly as water rushed inside. “It felt like all our hard work was washed away in a matter of minutes,” said Anil Verma, a cloth trader whose shop in Naveen Market was soaked through.
Lucknow too bore the monsoon’s fury. What began as an eerie afternoon darkness around 1:30 pm quickly gave way to a pounding downpour. Rainwater entered homes in Indira Nagar and Alambagh, forcing families to stack furniture and mattresses on higher levels. At Colvin College, students huddled in classrooms until they were moved upstairs as water streamed into the ground floor. “We were literally marooned inside the campus for hours,” said one student.
In Lakhimpur Kheri, the rains brought a chilling encounter with the wild. A 15-foot python slithered into a sugarcane field, swallowed a dog whole and lunged at a farmer working nearby. “I ran as fast as I could, screaming for help. By the time people arrived, the dog was gone,” the young man recounted. Forest officials eventually captured the python and released it deep in the jungle.
Further east in Siddharthnagar, the swelling BanGanga river overflowed its banks after continuous rains in Nepal’s hills. The gushing water forced authorities to throw open all floodgates of a dam. “We had to act quickly. A delay could have risked lives,” said an irrigation official. Downstream villagers braced for the sudden surge, moving cattle and belongings to higher ground.
But the day’s deepest tragedy unfolded in Jaunpur. Two children and a man died when lightning struck as they played in the fields. “They were laughing one moment, and the next, everything went silent,” said Ramesh Yadav, a villager, his voice trembling. Families lit small earthen lamps at their doorsteps in mourning.
The Meteorological Department has warned of heavy rainfall in 30 districts, with six likely to be hit hardest. Over the past 24 hours, 48 districts recorded an average of 10.3 mm of rain—68 percent more than forecast. Bahraich received the heaviest rainfall at 104 mm, followed by Ayodhya and Barabanki with 60.5 mm each.
State disaster officials urged people to remain indoors during thunderstorms, avoid standing under trees and stay away from flooded streets. “Precautions are the only shield against nature’s fury,” a senior officer said.
