A labourer works at a road construction site as rain clouds fill the sky in Bhubaneswar. A low pressure over Bay of Bengal on Tuesday turned into a depression on Wednesday morning triggering rains in various parts of the state, including Bhubaneswar, bringing relief from the sweltering heat. “The showers have brought down the temperature. This has come as a huge relief,” said Purusottam Sahu, a resident of Nayapalli. Weatherman forecast that the depression would cause more rains in the next 36 hours. The regional meteorological centre has issued warning to fishermen not to venture into the sea in north Odisha “Thunder squalls accompanied by gusty surface winds with speeds reaching up to 50 to 60 km/hour may occur at one or two places in the next 24 hours,” said a senior met official. While Puri received rainfall of 26.6mm, Sundergarh and Jharsuguda, the two places that have been reeling under extreme heat wave conditions, received rainfall of 21.4 and 16.2mm, respectively. Phulbani, Titilagarh, Malkangiri and Sonepur received moderate rainfall. However, met officials have forecast that the temperature would gradually rise after the next 36 hours though heat wave conditions will no longer prevail in the state. Text: Lelin Kumar Mallick, Picture: AP