India, May 3 -- Gurugram's crumbling civic infrastructure was brutally exposed once again as the season's first pre-monsoon showers- just 45mm of rain over three-and-a-half hours on Friday morning-brought the city to its knees. Arterial roads across the city experienced crippling congestion, with bottlenecks on NH-8 at Hero Honda Chowk, Rajiv Chowk and Narsinghpur. The downpour's ripple effects spread to Golf Course Road, Southern Peripheral Road, Udyog Vihar, Civil Lines and sectors 31, 38 and 44, forcing commuters into gridlock for hours on end. 50 trees uprooted.

By 9 am, knee-deep water had transformed roads into rivers, halting vehicles and triggering breakdowns that stretched delays beyond 60 minutes. Winds gusting up to 80 km/h sn...