It had not rained at all since I arrived in Delhi which was surprising because it’s still monsoon season here.  Well, that certainly changed today.

Around 1 PM it started to rain and it was a thick heavy rain.  Puddles started to show up and muck everything up.  Around 3 PM what seemed like heavy rain became real monsoon heavy rain.  Watching it out a coffee shop window, my jaw was dropping at how hard it was coming down.  By about 4:30 it was over and I headed to the metro and back to the hotel.  On my walk back from the hotel, I saw some absolutely incredible stuff.  First, an entire side road was flooded and had turned an intersection of a main road into a lake. I had to do some creative walking to avoid swimming, the water was literally so deep and it was flowing hard.  The aftermath is pictured on the right, but that’s from an hour later and the water level had lowered dramatically.

So, you might be wondering why I crossed the intersection and then photographed it an hour later.  At the time I crossed it was too crazy to get a picture.  As I walked, I realized I’d gone the wrong direction.  As I turned around, I heard a cracking and I WATCHED as an entire half of a tree fell into a traffic jam covering three lanes of traffic.  It was one of the most incredible things I’ve witnessed.  The photos don’t quite do it justice.  Luckily no one was hurt, it seemed.  When it happened, people started running over to help.  Within a minute, there were a hundred people there, dragging away branches and helping get to people stuck in their cars.

The helpers freed enough branches that some people started driving under the trunk near the edge, while others tried to clear the other side.  Hysterically, two guys got in an accident trying to go around the tree and didn’t even bother stopping. This should give you an idea how crazy driving in Delhi is.  Meanwhile, people were on the roof of a truck, sawing away at the tree trunk.  After a few minutes, they sawed off half the tree, broke off the portion and tugged it out of the way, effectively clearing two of the three lanes and freeing the remaining trapped cars.  The trapped truck DROVE AWAY. In the course of 20 minutes, a completely volunteer group had formed and cleared out the accident.  I saw a couple police officers by the end but they were just bystanders mostly.  It was amazing how quickly people reacted and fixed it, not even thinking to wait for an emergency response.  I doubt it would happen nearly the same way in the United States.

Once that portion of the work was done, everyone felt fairly satisfied and the crowd started to dissipate. Driving around the huge tree trunk in the middle of the road just became a natural part of the traffic pattern.  I continued on my way, re-forded the intersection after snapping a few shots and got back to the hotel safely.  You really ought to check out these pictures.  If you can make out what’s going on it’s really quite incredible.