Built at a cost of nearly Rs 500 crore, Madhya Pradesh’s Rewa Airport was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in October of 2024. It was hailed as a key development for the Vindhya region. However, the recent rains in the state have exposed cracks in the structural integrity of the facility. A section of the boundary wall at the airport collapsed late Friday night after torrential rains lashed the region.

According to officials, incessant downpours caused rivers in Rewa district to overflow, flooding low-lying urban areas and displacing several families. A surge of high-velocity floodwater breached a portion of the airport’s perimeter wall. Airport authorities confirmed that nearly five feet of water had entered the airport.

“Heavy rainfall, similar to last year, caused water to rush into the airport from nearby Umari village,” Navneet Chaudhary, senior manager at Rewa Airport, told IE. He added that the collapsed portion of the wall was located at the lowest elevation of the structure and was originally designed to resist wind and structural loads, not strong water currents.

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Airport officials denied construction flaws, attributing the wall’s failure to unforeseen extreme weather. “We cannot blame the construction quality entirely. Had we known in advance about the high flow of water from the village side, we would have installed grills up to the half-wall height,” the report quoted Chaudhary as saying. The damaged section will now be rebuilt with design changes to prevent future breaches.

Heavy rains in Madhya Pradesh

Severe rainfall has led to flood-like conditions in several districts of Madhya Pradesh, prompting the evacuation of residents from vulnerable villages in Rewa, Satna, Maihar, and Chhatarpur. Among them, Chhatarpur recorded the highest rainfall on Saturday.

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Khajuraho received 6.3 inches of rain within just nine hours, while Naugaon reported around 3.5 inches. In response, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued an orange alert for very heavy rainfall in 19 districts, including Gwalior, Morena, Harda, Khandwa and Khargone.

A yellow alert for heavy rain has also been issued in 22 other districts, including Bhopal, Indore, Alirajpur and Dewas.