Mumbai dunked, Duranto derailed
MANIC MONSOON India’s commercial capital gets over 300 mm of rain, more showers likely, warns weather dept
MUMBAI/ GUWAHATI/ NEW DELHI: India’s business capital was paralysed by waist-deep water on roads and railway tracks on Tuesday as a late but forceful monsoon surge inundated large tracts of India.
Mumbai received a dunking on Tuesday as it got over 300mm of rain, the maximum this season. Authorities were struggling to evacuate people as high tide was expected to add to the chaos.
Suburban trains, the city’s lifeline that carries more than seven million commuters every day, ground to a halt and thousands were stranded at stations.
Passengers of the NagpurMumbai Duronto Express had a lucky escape as nine coaches of the train derailed near Asangaon, about 70km north of Mumbai, when heavy rain washed away portions of the tracks. No one was injured.
Dozens of flights were delayed or cancelled as runways were water-logged at Chhatrapati Shivaji Airport.
Elsewhere in the country, the toll rose to 514 in Bihar’s floods, and 18 trains were cancelled.
A second wave of floods is wreaking havoc in Assam . More than 100 people have died and half a million displaced this monsoon in the state.
The rain has reduced over the weekend, according to weather officials, but the state is reeling from its aftermath.
A landslide on national highway 2 severed the crucial road link from Nagaland to Manipur.
This year’s monsoon has been erratic with parts such as Mumbai, the Northeast and Bihar receiving more than normal rainfall and regions in Karnataka, southern Maharashtra, western Madhya Pradesh and eastern Gujarat getting deficient rain. Unprecedented rain flooded districts in northern Gujarat and Rajasthan for the first time in decades.
Till Monday, the overall rainfall for India was 5% less than normal.
The monsoon that runs from late June to September delivers about 70% of India’s annual rainfall, critical for the farm-based economy. The weather department predicts very heavy rain till Wednesday in Mumbai and several parts of India.
“A low pressure area that had developed over Odisha has moved westwards towards the central parts of the country. There is an upper air cyclonic circulation over eastern part of the state and a trough that extends over the west coast,” said KS Hosalikar, western region deputy director general of the India Meteorological Department.
“All these factors have led to very heavy rain over the Konkan coast, especially Mumbai. We expect similar conditions till Wednesday.”
A similar forecast is made for central and northeastern India.
Most schools in Mumbai were closed and three teams of the National Disaster Relief Force are deployed to rescue people.
Many businesses asked employees to leave early in expectation of worsening traffic jams.
The civic administration has its hands full as the city’s is celebrating its most revered annual Hindu festival, Ganesh Chaturthi, and people are flocking temples and temporary stages where the god is being worshipped.
Rainwater flooded the King Edward Memorial Hospital in central Mumbai, forcing doctors to vacate the paediatric ward.
“We are worried about infections ... the rainwater is circulating rubbish that is now entering parts of the emergency ward,” said Ashutosh Desai, a doctor in the 1,800-bed hospital.
RAINWATER FLOODED THE KING EDWARD MEMORIAL HOSPITAL IN CENTRAL MUMBAI, FORCING DOCTORS TO VACATE THE PAEDIATRIC WARD.