People walk through railway tracks after heavy rains in Mumbai on Friday. (Press Trust of India)
After 15 days' worth of rain on Friday left Mumbai battered and struggling to cope, the city is slowly returning to normalcy today. With just a light drizzle this morning, water has started to recede from the roads, and many people can be seen on the streets. Train services, which were badly hit due to waterlogging yesterday, have resumed.
Here are the 10 developments in the story:
There's no waterlogging on tracks this morning and Western Railways' suburban and long distance trains are running without delay. The Central Railways says the water has receded and suburban services on mainline, harbor and trans harbor lines are running fine.
With heavy rain still forecast over the next 24 hours, Mumbai was advised to stay at home today. "We have advised people not to go out and remain indoors on Saturday," said Mumbai's civic body chief Ajoy Mehta as the city battled incessant rain and flooding in just the second week of monsoon on Friday.
Yesterday, a downpour of over 500 mm in 24 hours clogged the city's outdated drainage system, capable of handling only a tenth of it. Confronting anger, Mr Mehta said: "Something which has been going on for 10 years cannot be improved in one minute."
Another reason for roads flooding on Friday was that a boulder fell near one of the gates at the Cleveland Bunder Pumping Station in Worli, preventing it from shutting completely which allowed a lot of sea water to flow into the city. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has taken action against the engineer responsible for the slip up.
Flights were delayed and the city's BEST buses altered their routes yesterday.
Rain covered tracks and crippled local train services for most of yesterday, which are the lifeline of the city. Around 70-80 lakh people take local trains to work everyday. The railways have asked commuters to travel "only in case of emergency" on Saturday.
Massive traffic jams were reported across the city yesterday, especially in areas that are badly flooded including Dadar, Parel, Sion, Andheri, Jogeshwari and Santa Cruz. Residents complained that brand new water pumping stations on which the civic body spent 200 crores failed to work after being damaged by rocks.
"#EveryYearSameStory---I think the Mumbaikar tax-payers money is used to block the city's drainage system," said actor-filmmaker Farhan Akhtar in a widely favourited tweet on Friday.
In response to the criticism, Aditya Thackeray, whose Shiv Sena controls the civic body, tweeted: "300 mm is a test for any city, and neither anyone of us, nor government agencies will shy away from responsibility. Working on streets."
With another challenging day ahead, teams of the navy and the National Disaster Response Force have been kept on standby. The navy has kept divers and inflatable boats ready.
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