Mumbai Rain: Mumbai roads regularly flood during the monsoon, from June to September or October
Heavy rain overnight and this morning battered several parts of Mumbai, leading to flooding and travel chaos. This is the heaviest spell of rain in the financial capital since 2005, Maharashtra minister Aaditya Thackeray told NDTV. "198 mm rain in four hours is a huge amount of rain. Any city in the world will collapse with such rain," Mr Thackeray said. The local trains, a lifeline for Mumbai's 20 million residents, have been stopped in the city and all offices, except emergency services are closed. Mumbai and a few neighbouring district are on red alert for "extremely heavy rainfall" today and tomorrow. Apart from Mumbai, the alert has been issued for Thane, Pune, Raigad and Ratnagiri districts of Maharashtra. The rain and its severe impact come at a time Mumbai is struggling with coronavirus cases.
Here are the top 10 updates on Mumbai rain:
Mumbai's civic body has said that except for essential services, all other offices in the city will be closed today. "Owing to the heavy rainfall since last night and forecasts of extremely heavy rain by @IndiaMetDep all offices and establishments in Mumbai, except emergency services, will remain shut," the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) tweeted.
Local trains - already running skeleton services due to the coronavirus pandemic - have been suspended on some routes in Mumbai and the suburbs due to flooding on rail tracks, officials said. Bus services have been diverted in several routes in various parts of Mumbai and the suburbs, the civic body said. There was no impact on operations at Mumbai's airport apart from reduced visibility, a representative said.
A 35-year-old woman and her two children were swept away in a swollen drain after their house collapsed due to heavy rain in suburban Santacruz this afternoon, an official said. The woman and her three children, aged between one to seven years, fell into the flooded drain and were swept away, the official from the fire brigade said. While the police managed to rescue a two-year-old girl before the fire brigade arrived, a search on for the woman and her two other children, he said.
"The downpour started around 7 PM last night and slowed down around 5 to 6 AM this morning. In the 10-hour downpour, 230 mm of rainfall was recorded in Mumbai. The Mithi river had swelled up in the morning because of the heavy rain and went above the prescribed danger mark of 27 meters. In the morning, it had gone up to 34 meters and we had started to evacuate people in the low-lying slum areas. The water levels have come down to 24, so we have ceased evacuation for now," Mumbai's civic body chief Iqbal Singh Chahal told news agency ANI.
26 places have reported flooding. Roads in areas such as Goregaon, King Circle, Hindmata, Dadar, Shivaji Chowk, Shell Colony, Kurla ST Depot, Bandra Talkies, Sion Road have been flooded. A landslide swept down a slope on the Western Express Highway in suburban Kandivali early Tuesday morning, affecting the movement of vehicles from the western suburbs towards south Mumbai, officials said.
Civic authorities advised people not to venture out unless absolutely necessary.
The Met office has also warned of strong winds off north Maharashtra coast today, tomorrow and on Thursday.
Mumbai's streets regularly flood during the monsoon, which runs from June until September or October, and which provides India with most of its annual rainfall.
Almost every monsoon, Mumbai struggles to cope with the chaos caused by the rain. The suburban trains are affected and low-lying areas get flooded.
Last year, heavy rain in Mumbai caused a number of deaths and triggered massive rail, road and air transport disruptions.
(With inputs from ANI, PTI and Reuters)
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