Heavy rains cripple Mumbai; more downpour expected on Tuesday

TIL Desk/National/Mumbai/Heavy rains lashed Mumbai and its neighbouring areas on Monday, flooding streets and badly affecting life in the city where nearly 90 train services on the suburban network were cancelled. A 43-year-old woman riding a motorcycle as a pillion was crushed by a bus after the two-wheeler hit a water-logged pothole in Thane district of Maharashtra. Around 300 people were stuck in their homes in Vasai town of the adjoining Palghar district due to waterlogging in the area.

However, they refused to be evacuated even as the water level receded. The residents preferred to stay in their homes instead of relocating to some temporary shelter in response to the district administration’s appeal for evacuation, a district information officer said. Some of them accepted food packets given by the administration, he said. “We have kept an ambulance near their homes as a precautionary measure,” the officer said.

The rainfall of 170 mm (recorded in Colaba observatory for the Mumbai city) from 8.30 am on Sunday morning till 8.30 am on Monday was the highest in a 24-hour period during the current monsoon season, Metereological department’s deputy director general K S Hosalikar said. From 8.30 am to 5.30 pm on Monday, the Colaba observatory recorded a rainfall of 104.8 mm.