Heavy downpour brings Mumbai to a standstill

Mumbai: Mumbai's residents were advised to stay home if they could as torrential rain accompanied by strong winds pummelled the city on Tuesday, disrupting rail, road and air services, uprooting trees, swamping homes, and bringing the megapolis and satellite towns to their knees.

People's woes were compounded by the high tide that prevented natural drainage of water into the sea.

Meteorological department sources said Mumbai recorded copious rain of 65 mm in just three hours.

Thousands of vehicles were stranded on arterial roads in Lower Parel, Dadar, Kurla, Andheri, Khar West, Ghatkopar, Sion and Hindmata areas that were under the knee to waist deep water for several hours, many having broken down.

Trains were running late or stopped on all three suburban railway lines—Central, North and Harbour lines—as tracks were submerged at several places.

Commuters were seen standing under knee deep water on the steps of buses in low lying areas like Parel. Traffic crawled at snail's pace on important roads, including the Eastern and Western Express Highway, Sion-Panvel highway and LBS Marg.

According to the civic body's disaster management cell, at least 20 incidents of trees fall and one of wall collapse were reported from across the city but there were no casualties.

Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis visited the State Disaster Management Control (SDMC) room and took stock of the situation.

He said the situation was being monitored closely and necessary advisories would be issued from time to time.

Aircraft have stopped landing at the city airport after 4 pm but were taking off, officials said.

Flight operations at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport saw delay and disruptions since Tuesday morning.

"Areas such as Mumbai, south Gujarat, Konkan, Goa and West Vidarbha will get extremely heavy rainfall in the next 24 to 48 hours. It is a serious situation. We have issued necessary warnings to the departments concerned, including airports," A K Srivastav, head of climate monitoring and analysis at IMD Pune said.

Charan Singh, Director, India Meteorological Department, said a 'Red' warning has been issued for the next 24 hours for the city and adjoining areas, indicating there could be very heavy rainfall. He said the city and surrounding areas would continue to receive heavy rainfall over the next 2-3 days.

Schools and colleges will be closed on Wednesday.