Part of Roof Collapses at India’s Busiest Airport After Heavy Rains

Part of the roof at a terminal at India’s busiest airport collapsed early Friday amid heavy thunderstorms and rains, killing at least one person and injuring eight others, according to a fire official.

India’s minister of civil aviation said in a social media post that rescue operations were taking place Friday morning at Terminal 1 of the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi. Airport officials said that the collapse happened around 5 a.m. local time in the departure area of the terminal and that all departures from the terminal had been suspended. Terminal 1 handles domestic flights.

A cabdriver was killed when a pillar holding up part of the roof fell onto his car, according to Ravinder Singh, an official with Delhi’s fire department. Eight others were taken to the hospital with injuries, he said.

Photos and videos of the scene on social media and on local television showed that an expansive section of the overhang outside the airport had buckled onto the pavement of what appeared to be the pickup and drop-off area outside the terminal. Several cars appeared crushed under collapsed pillars.

Delhi was hit with near-record rainfall in the 24 hours leading up to Friday morning, receiving close to nine inches of rain, according to the India Meteorological Department.

More than 40 flights out of the airport were canceled as of around 1 p.m., according to FlightAware, a flight information tracking site. Arrivals and departures for Indigo and Spice Jet, major low-cost carriers, have been moved to other terminals, according to the airport.

The terminal was recently renovated and expanded to reach a capacity of 40 million passengers annually, according to a news release from the airport.

Monsoon season in India can test public infrastructure, including bridges and underpasses, which the country has invested in heavily in recent years. In the past 10 days, at least four bridges — either being built or just completed — have collapsed in the central Indian state of Bihar.

On Friday, opposition leaders were quick to accuse Prime Minister Narendra Modi of having rushed in March to unveil the expansion of the airport terminal where the collapse happened.

“All this false bravado and rhetoric was only reserved for quickly indulging in ribbon-cutting ceremonies before Elections!” Mallikarjun Kharge, president of the opposition Indian National Congress party, wrote on X.

The minister of civil aviation, though, told reporters Friday that the collapse had happened in an older part of the airport, not the recently expanded section.

Another piece of infrastructure championed by Mr. Modi is a tunnel and underpasses for commuters in Delhi, completed in 2022. Less than two years later, the structure is riddled with cracks, waterlogging and seepage, putting commuters at risk.