Heavy rain batters Mumbai, disrupting traffic
Met department issues red alert after more rains expected
Authorities in the Indian city of Mumbai issued a red alert yesterday and warned people not to venture out after heavy overnight rain in the financial hub brought flooding and travel chaos.
Some suburbs have seen more than 300mm (30cm) of rain in the 24 hours until yesterday morning and more heavy rain is expected over the next two days, said India Meteorological Department (IMD) official K.S. Hosalikar.
The department issued a red alert for the city for the next two days and civic authorities advised people not to venture out unless absolutely necessary.
Trains, already running skeleton services due to the coronavirus lockdown, were suspended in several places because of flooding and traffic was disrupted on some of the city’s main roads.
A landslide swept down a slope onto a main road in a northern suburb, media reported. There was no impact on operations at Mumbai’s airport apart from reduced visibility, a representative said. The city struggles with the monsoon rains every year as widespread construction and rubbish-clogged drains and waterways make it increasingly vulnerable to flooding. Mumbai is also struggling with a surging coronavirus outbreak with an average of 1,000 new cases being reported every day.
One dead
Meanwhile, one girl child, among three females who went missing yesterday, was found dead by the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) team, after the floors of their rooms collapsed and they fell into the sewage channel at the back of the building, was found dead.
According to NDRF, the team searching for the missing people “recovered the dead body of a girl child namely Janvi Milind Kakade age 1.5 yrs at 3.50pm.”
Two others, Rekha Milind Kakade (26) and Shreya Milind Kakade (7.6), are still missing.
“We received a phone call about the incident around 11:30am. When we arrived at the scene, it was brought to our attention that the flooring of the upper floor and ceiling of the ground floor had completely collapsed,” informed Prabhat S. Rahangdale, Chief Fire Officer (CFO) of the Mumbai Fire Brigade.