HEAVY RAINFALL since Sunday night claimed 10 lives in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Thane. Water-logging in several places disrupted both road and rail traffic as the city recorded the season’s highest rainfall.
The Santacruz observatory recorded rainfall of 231.4mm in 24 hours on Monday morning. This is the first time that the city recorded rainfall in excess of 200 mm this year. The highest rainfall was recorded at the automatic weather station at Malad at 317.6 mm in the 24 hours until Monday morning. According to the IMD, this is the second highest rainfall recorded in the month of June in the last decade after 283.4 mm recorded on June 19, 2015.
On Monday, while a youth died after he allegedly fell in an open manhole at Malad in Mumbai, the body of an eight-year-old boy was found at a nullah in Kalwa, Thane. Also, a fiver-year-old boy allegedly died after he fell into a pit at an under construction building at Kharghar in Navi Mumbai. At Ambernath in Thane, a 15-year-old boy was killed after a wall collapsed.
On Sunday, a 20-year-old man allegedly drowned at the Barrage dam near Badlapur in Thane. In the evening, three men sitting near the Taloja lake in Navi Mumbai slipped into the water when suddenly the flow of water from a nearby hillock increased. While one of the men started slipping in the lake, two others drowned trying to save him, said police. Until late Monday evening, two bodies were recovered. In Mumbai, Parshuram Bastin (74) and Rajendra Singh (60) had died on Sunday after a tree fell on them on MG Road near the Metro Cinema at Azad Maidan. Also, a man was killed late Sunday in Ulhasnagar after his car rammed into a divider owing to low visibility.
A huge part of a compound wall as well as the driveway caved in at Lloyd’s Estate, a highrise at Wadala in Mumabi next to an under-construction project of Dosti Realty, on Monday morning. While no casualty was reported, 14 cars were buried under the debris. As a precautionary measure, residents were asked to evacuate their homes.
Several parts of the city, like Chunabhatti, Wadala, Dadar, Malad, Kurla, Gamdevi, Santacruz-Chembur Link Road, were flooded, causing major traffic disruptions. Waterlogging was reported in some parts of the Eastern and Western Express Highways, arterial roads, and many low-lying areas of the city and suburbs. The water level receded after 5 pm.
More than 140 train services on both Central and Western Railway were canceled due to heavy rain on Monday. Waterlogging was reported at tracks near Thane, Sion, Tilak Nagar, Kandivali, Borivali and Kalwa stations. At Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport in Mumbai, two flights were diverted. More than 50 bus routes of Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) were diverted due to water-logged roads.
The IMD has predicted heavy to very heavy rain in the city in the next 24 to 48 hours. “Circulation over south Gujarat and adjoining north Konkan has moved inward in north direction, which will cause a reduction in rainfall activity over north Konkan in next 24 hours,” said K S Hosalikar, Deputy Director-General, Western Region, IMD Mumbai.
According to Skymet weather, the city and its adjoining areas are likely to receive moderate to heavy showers on Tuesday as well. “In the next 24 hours, Mumbai and its adjoining areas are likely to get heavy showers. People need to be careful for the next two days. The intensity of rain is likely to reduce from June 27, and by June 28 it will further reduce,” said Mahesh Palawat, Vice President, Meteorology and Climate Change, Skymet Weather in a tweet. “There is a cyclonic circulation over north Konkan-Goa and south Gujarat region which is causing the heavy rains. The winds coming from the Arabian Sea are increasing the intensity of the rains,” he tweeted.