Heavy rains in Mumbai again; local train services disrupted

Mumbai: A day after heavy showers pounded Mumbai, the rain intensity reduced briefly on Monday morning but picked up momentum again during the day, causing water-logging at some places and disruption of local train services on the Central Railway route, officials said.

On Sunday, 30 people were killed in the metropolis in rain-related incidents, including 19 in Mahul area of Chembur where a retaining wall collapsed on some houses after a landslide.

However, after a brief spell of reduced intensity in the morning, the rains picked up pace again during the day, causing inundation in some areas.

Local train services on the Central Railway's slow line were suspended for about half-an-hour around 3 pm on Monday due to flooding on tracks between Kalwa and Mumbra stations in neighbouring Thane district, CR's chief spokesperson Shivaji Sutar said.

The services were later restored on the slow corridor by 3.35 pm, he said.

Earlier in the day, water-logging occurred between Vikhroli and Bhandup rail section following heavy showers in parts of the suburbs, Sutar said.

The suburban train services were suspended in that section of the main line from 10.35 am to 10.50 am as a precautionary measure, he said.

The station yard in Thane was also inundated and as a result, trains were running slow, railway sources said.

A rail activist said the CR's suburban train timetable was disturbed due to water-logging between Vikhroli and Bhandup section as well as at Thane station.

According to some passengers, there was bunching of trains on CR route near the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT) in south Mumbai.

Trains were taking at least 30 minutes to cover the distance between Byculla to CSMT, as againat the usual time of 10-12 minutes, they said. Meanwhile, five members of a family, including three minors, were killed on Monday evening after a boulder rolled down and crashed into a slum colony due to incessant rains in Kalwa area of Thane district, officials said.

Thane Municipal Corporation's Regional Disaster Management Cell chief Santosh Kadam said the incident took place in Gholai Nagar, where five people - a husband-wife duo and their three children - were buried alive.

The bodies have been retrieved from the debris by search and rescue personnel, he said. "Two children were rescued after the incident. All the deceased, including three minors, were from the same family," he said.

Kadam said the boulder crashed on a house in a 'chawl' (an old row tenement), trapping its seven occupants, all from the same family.

While two children, aged 5 and 18, were rescued, the five others died in the incident, he said.

The deceased were identified as Prabhu Sudam Yadav (45), his wife Vidhavatidevi Yadav (40) and

their children Ravikisan (12) Simaran (10) and Sandhya (3), Kadam said.