The authorities in India are inspecting airports across the nation after the collapse of s roof at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi Airport on Friday. The roof collapsed due to heavy rainfall, destroying cars, injuring at least eight people, and killing one person, according to CNN.
The airport was forced to cancel over 100 flights from Terminal 1, which is mainly used for domestic flights operated by IndiGo and SpiceJet. In response to the incident, many of these were redirected to terminals 2 and 3.
The Federal Aviation Minister of India, Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu, announced a compensation of 2 million rupees ($24,000) to the family of the deceased, and 300,000 rupees ($3600) to those injured.
Kinjarapu also chaired a meeting where it was decided to establish a 24/7 “Operational war room” in Terminal 2 or 3 to handle the situation in the coming days.
Nationwide Inspections
The Airports Authority of India (AAI) issued a call to inspect all national and international airports to ensure a suitable level of structural integrity. However, the inspections are only expected to last between two and five days per airport.
The Indian government was initially criticized heavily on social media for the matter, given that they had spent billions on renovations, which was then inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. However, it was clarified by Kinjarapu that this was a different section of the airport, and that the roof which had collapsed was a part of the old building from 2009.
