Monsoon chaos: After dry spell, rain lashes city, halts transport

are conducive to good rainfall that we saw today. Today’s rainfall can be seen as a revival of monsoon here. We can except heavy showers in the next 48 hours,” said VK Rajeev, IMD Mumbai director.

[related-post]

After a dry spell of over two weeks, rains in the catchment areas have also increased water levels significantly. The current levels will last the city for another 81 days, data reveals.

Continuous showers resulted in a wall collapse in Ashok Nagar, Govandi where a two-month old baby, Naikraja Parvez Alam Ansari died on the spot. His mother Khushboo Parvez Alam Ansari (26) sustained minor injuries and was admitted to the civic-run Shatabdi hospital. Kiran Dighavkar, assistant commissioner of the M-East ward (which includes Govandi) said, “The wall adjacent to their house was in a dilapidated

condition. The slum comes under the collector land and we have already intimidated them for granting a compensation to the family.”
In another incident, a 70 feet by 20 feet compound wall collapsed at the Sea Hill building in Bandra’s Carter road on Tuesday morning. The compound wall was adjacent to the building’s parking lot and the collapse resulted in the cars tumbling down on the street.
Officials confirmed that no cars were damaged in the accident, however, no injury was reported.

Two people were also injured due to tree collapse in two separate locations in Borivali. The city altogether recorded 41 cases of tree collapses, 3 in the island city, 8 in the eastern suburbs and 30 in the western suburbs.

The relative humidity at Colaba was 90 per cent and at Santacruz, it was 93 per cent.

Between 2 am and 3 pm on Tuesday, the city received 49.74 mm, eastern suburbs received 105.17 mm and western suburbs received 68.17 mm rainfall. Kurla received the highest amount of rainfall on Tuesday with 165.31 mm between 2 am and 3 pm, followed by Chembur and Deonar with 131.8 mm and 129.83 mm.

The maximum temperature on Tuesday at Colaba was 27.2 degrees Celsius and at Santacruz, it was 27.6 degrees Celsius. The minimum temperature at Colaba was 26 degrees Celsius and at Santacruz, it was 24.2 degrees Celsius.

Heavy showers affected Mumbai’s lifeline, the railways, the worst on Tuesday. The long distance trains to and from Gujarat were badly affected due to heavy rainfall in Palghar district. The Western Railway officials said that the soil that supports the tracks towards Gujarat washed away causing cancellations in the long distance services.

The heavy rainfall had also affected the Mumbai suburban train services on both Central and Western Lines.

“The services were affected from 4 am, the services between Virar -Dahanu were cancelled. Almost 20 trains were also affected due to heavy water-logging in Palghar,” said a spokesperson from the Western Railway.

Due to water logging, the district collector of Palghar has directed all schools and colleges to remain shut.

The continuous showers led to water logging at Sion and Chunabhatti. Mainline and harbour line suburban services were running behind schedule by 15-25 minutes on Tuesday morning.

The services on the mainline on the slow track were suspended after water level rise between Sion and Matunga. Due to heavy rainfall, over 100 train services were cancelled on all the three lines. The BEST also diverted buses from Sion, Bandra, Milan subway, Maheshwari Udyan, Shell colony, Khardev Nagar, Manjreakr Marg and and Naik Nagar in Khar due to heavy inundation. Citizens complained of heavy traffic snarls at the eastern and western express highway and the Santacruz-Chembur link road during peak hours on Tuesday.

The heavy rains resulted in water-logging in several areas including Mahim, Sion, Dharavi, Chembur, Govandi, Kurla, Mulund, Vikhroil, Ghatkopar and Mankhurd in the eastern suburbs. In the western side, areas such as Borivali, Bandra, Andheri, Khar, Santacruz, Kandivali, Dahisar, Goregaon and Vile Parle witnessed inundation. According to BMC officials, 111 de-watering pumps were in operation across the city on Tuesday.

A senior civic official, however, said that the pumps could not drain the water from the streets. “Areas like Dharavi remained inundated throughout the day, we are investigating the cause,” he said.

mumbai.newsline@expressindia.com