Three airports have suffered a collapse this week under torrential rains. PRATAP PADODE, Founder FIRST Construction Council recommends five measures to improve infrastructure health

A portion of a roof at Terminal-1 of Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport collapsed on cars under heavy rainfall and winds, killing one person and injuring around eight others. Just the previous day a portion of the canopy at the new terminal building of Jabalpur airport in Madhya Pradesh caved in and fell on a car after heavy rainfall. A statement by the Airports Authority of India (AAI), Jabalpur read, “Due to continuous rainfall since yesterday evening, a part of the fabric canopy, constructed for the aesthetic appeal of the newly-built building at Jabalpur Airport, accumulated water and the fabric tore. This caused the water to fall on the car parked below, damaging the car’s roof and windows. After the Delhi airport incident, a portion of the canopy at Gujarat's Rajkot Airport too collapsed amidst heavy rains.

While Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) is a joint venture, formed as a consortium between GMR Airports (64 per cent), Airports Authority of India (26 per cent), and Fraport AG Frankfurt Airport (10 per cent), the Jabalpur airport and Rajkot airports are operated by Airport Authority of India. Given the fact that the DIAL has right to operate the Delhi airport terminal 1 for a period of 30+ 30 years on BOOT basis, it is also responsible for the upkeep and maintenance. Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) should be undertaking structural audits of the airports on a regular basis.

Apart from being one of the largest private airport companies in India operating Delhi, Hyderabad, and Goa airports, GMR Group is also the only Indian airport developer to have developed and operated airports outside India.

GMR Group is definitely not a fly-by night operator which would cut corners and has substantial experience in the domain. Then what could be the reasons that such a company has encountered this tragic incident?

Delhi received 23cm of rain till 8.30am, the highest in a day since 1936. IMD defines “heavy” rainfall as 6.45cm to 11.5cm and “very heavy” rainfall as 11.6cm to 20.4 cm. On Friday 28th June, Safdarjung, representative of Delhi’s weather, received nearly 15cm of rainfall in three hours between 4am and 7am. Even the IMD director general has commented that it was very unusual for Delhi to receive such heavy rainfall in such a short duration. Gujarat too has had a spate of torrential rains.

Just two months ago, in April 2024, Dubai and other parts of the UAE faced record rainfall that led to widespread flooding. Dubai International Airport, one of the world's busiest, had to cancel and delay numerous flights as floodwaters inundated the runways. Streets and highways were also submerged, causing severe disruptions. Despite planning by expert global urban planners, the onslaught of nature to pour so heavily over a short period was completely not expected and hence not prepared for.

In each of the three airports, water gathered on the roof or canopies instead of flowing down through the outlets. The outlets ought to have a capacity to allow a stronger stream of water and the water ought to have been led into the ground for recharging of ground water. This is a similar case when flooding takes place in cities and urban areas when the storm water drains are clogged with plastic waste and water begins to accumulate rather than flow down the drain.

The climate disruptions have been occurring more frequently in recent years and several cases of furious rains, cloud bursts, have inundated several international cities too.

What are lessons from this disaster?
1. Infrastructure assets need to be resilient
2. There should be regular structural audits of old but critical infrastructure assets
3. Proposed infrastructure assets need to provide for enhanced capacity, especially of water drainage systems to withstand a higher factor of disruptions
4. Infrastructure assets should be bid out on QCBS system rather than on L1 basis
5. In critical assets exposed to higher degree of risk from example earthquakes, storms, tornadoes etc a higher capacity of tolerance needs to be provided in the specifications in contract documents.

Image source: PTI