NEW DELHI: A massive dust storm and thunder squall stopped the city in its tracks on Friday evening, bringing relief from the severe heat but leaving a trail of death, destruction and chaos. Nine people were killed in Delhi and three in Ghaziabad as trees fell on cars and strong winds toppled brick piles. A crashing luggage pile at the airport killed a loader.More than 350 trees were uprooted, leading to traffic jams. Power supply was snapped for up to five hours in several parts of the city and metro services were disrupted just ahead of evening rush hour. the erratic power supply is further expected to trigger water shortage in the city on Saturday.Until 4pm, Delhi was preparing for a heat wave, with the weather giving away nothing but a hot, dry summer day. The Met office had reported the presence of a light haze over Delhi during the first half of the day because of which many thought that cloud formation would not be possible. By 4.15 pm, the skies darkened and 15 minutes later, a storm was raging, catching commuters unawares.The Met office put down the massive thunder squall to a 14km-tall cumulonimbus cloud that settled over the capital, splitting it in half, causing south, southwest and west Delhi to face its lashing tail.The IGI Airport reported a windspeed of 114.8 kmph during the storm which resulted in a massive disruption of air traffic. One person died and five aircraft were damaged as stray step ladders rammed into them. Dr RK Jenamani, director in-charge, IGI Met said that this was the most severe dust storm recorded at the airport in terms of wind speed after eight years. “The storm was strongest in the tail end area of a cumulonimbus cloud. This included the southern, southwestern and parts of west Delhi. The 14km high cloud cell had come from the Chandigarh side and was moving at a speed of 10-15 kmph across Delhi. While this brought extremely strong winds, it did not cause much rain,” he said.Nine deaths were reported from around the city. At least three persons lost their lives after trees fell on their vehicles in southwest, central and north Delhi. A few other deaths happened after unstable walls collapsed on people during the storm.The city lost several hundred trees to the storm though the official figure was pegged at 350. The trees, many of them huge Neem ones, fell indiscriminately over people, vehicles, walls and roads, bringing about much greater destruction. The cityscape was dotted with smashed vehicles barely visible through the thick foliage and people frantically hacking through branches for wood before the trees were taken away by the municipal agencies.Traffic snarls were reported from all the major roads across the city. Traffic officials said that the whole of central Delhi including India Gate and Connaught Place came to a stand still after several trees were uprooted and blocked roads like Tilak Marg, Shahjahan Road and Rajendra Prasad Road.Hail storm and strong winds alongwith erratic power from the Delhi Metro’s main power supplier, Delhi Transco Limited (DTL), led to the entire metro network being disrupted for an hour. Delhi Metro’s two popular lines – the Dwarka and Gurgaon lines – was the most affected as crowds of passengers were stranded inside trains and stations. Trains on the other corridors in the network were also stuck.At Safdarjung, which fell in the front of the cell, the wind speed was 92kmph and 0.6 mm rain was recorded. Temperature however, fell by 5-10 degrees across the city. From a maximum of 42.8 degrees Celsius, Delhi’s temperature came down to 35 degrees Celsius right after the storm and to 30 degrees at 5.30 pm. In Palam, the maximum of 45.8 degrees Celsius plummeted to 30.5 degrees Celsius. Another outcome of the storm is that the improvement in weather expected over the weekend will not be very sharp. “Whatever energy was built up because of the heat during the past few days was expended in Friday’s storm. A western disturbance induced dust storm and slight rain is expected between Saturday and Sunday but they will not be as strong as were expected,” said a Met official.