New Delhi: A portion of the canopy at Rajkot international airport collapsed Saturday amid heavy rains. This is the third such incident at an airport in India in as many days, after the Dumna airport in Jabalpur and T-1 of Delhi’s IGI airport.
The portion of the canopy at Rajkot airport collapsed while maintenance work was being undertaken to remove accumulated water on it, according to news agency ANI.
Inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 27 July last year, the new terminal is being built across a total land area of 2,534 acres at a total cost of Rs 1,405 crore.
According to a statement by the Press Information Bureau (PIB) dated 27 July 2023, the new greenfield airport in Hirasar, Rajkot was built to replace the previous 236 acre airport in the city, which could not be expanded further to “meet civil aviation requirements”.
The canopy which collapsed Saturday was located at an interim terminal building at the new airport, which once the new terminal is constructed, will become a cargo terminal.
On Friday, one person died and at least six were injured after a portion of the canopy at T-1 of Delhi airport collapsed following heavy rains. Apart from the canopy collapsing, support beams also fell, damaging parked cars in the pick up and dropped areas of the terminal.
The government ordered an inquiry into the incident, as reported by ThePrint earlier.
Similarly, a portion of the canopy at the Dumna airport in Jabalpur collapsed Thursday after a spate of heavy rains, according to media reports. The fabric canopy outside the airport ripped after the accumulation of water and fell, damaging a car parked underneath it.
Both the revamped Delhi airport and the Dumna airport terminals were also recently inaugurated by Modi, earlier this year.