Incessant overnight rain, followed by intermittent showers during the day, threw parts of Mumbai out of gear on Friday with the city witnessing severe waterlogging, disrupting local train services and vehicular traffic. Around 250 people had to be evacuated from the low-lying areas along Mithi river.
Not forewarned by the Met department of extremely heavy rainfall, people of Mumbai witnessed the season’s heaviest showers on Friday. At 253.3 mm, the India Meteorological Department’s (IMD) Santacruz observatory recorded the second-highest rainfall in 24 hours in a decade between July 15-16.
With the high-intensity downpour, low-lying areas of Kurla were in ankle-deep water till 2 pm. The downpour caused heavy flooding in 27 streets, including roads leading to the city highways and low-lying areas of Kurla, Chunabhatti, Sion Road no. 24, King Circle, Wadala bridge, areas in Dadar and Kandivali, Gandhi Market in Matunga, Siddharth Nagar in Goregaon, RCF, Chembur Phatak, Milan Subway, Linking Road, Sheetal Cinema in Kurla LBS Road, DN Nagar in Andheri West, Oberoi and Hub mall in Goregaon East, Santacruz near the Western Express Highway and roads leading to the Eastern Freeway.
Traffic was affected and over 85 buses were forced to either cancel or divert routes, including in Andheri, Chembur, Sion and Wadala in the morning.
After Mithi river crossed the dangerous mark, around 250 people were evacuated from the Kranti Nagar slum, which is located at the riverbank. The residents, who were shifted to Bail Bazar Municipal school as a precautionary cautionary measure, returned around noon. However, low-lying areas in Kurla was inundated till 2 pm.
After the downpour, IMD updated the warning to orange alert, indicating “heavy to very heavy rain” at isolated places for Friday. However, throughout Friday, light rain at 14 mm was recorded in the Mumbai suburbs and 4 mm in the island city.
Following the updated alert, three teams of the National Disaster Response Force were shifted from Pune to Mumbai as a precautionary measure.
As heavy rain lashed the city, local train services on the Central and Harbour lines were disrupted, as waterlogging was reported on the tracks of several stations.
According to Central Railway, due to heavy rain and water on tracks at Kurla, Sion, Vidya Vihar, Chunabatti and Chembur, trains ran cautiously and hence, there was bunching on the Main and Harbour lines.
Due to waterlogging at Kurla-Sion, trains on the fast line between Matunga-Mulund station in Central line was suspended from 10.30 to 11.15 am. On the Harbour line, due to waterlogging at Chunabhatti station, trains were suspended between Vadala-Mankhurd from 11.10 am to 12 pm.
Owing to waterlogging and heavy rain at several areas, BEST buses were diverted on 85 routes. The routes were restored around 5.30 pm. Also, 61 complaints regarding malfunction in buses were received. Of these, 59 faults were repaired.
Inputs from Vallabh Ozarkar
