Heavy rain lashed the city on Monday morning, resulting in the usual chaos of waterlogging, traffic congestion and train delays, inconveniencing office-goers.
Rainfall abated by the evening, but the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has forecast similar weather conditions for Tuesday.
Heavy rainfall has been reported in the city since Saturday. From 8.30 a.m. on Sunday to 8.30 a.m. on Monday, the IMD’s Santacruz observatory recorded 231 mm rainfall while Colaba recorded 99 mm rainfall. The showers were concentrated in the western suburbs, with Malad (West) alone recording around 300 mm rainfall on BMC’s automatic weather stations. It reduced only by evening, with a few isolated showers reported.
Until 8.30 p.m. on Monday, Colaba recorded 43mm rainfall and Santacruz 48.3mm. The IMD has forecast heavy to very heavy rains for the next 24 hours.
Flood-prone areas
Heavy waterlogging was seen at Sion’s road no. 24, King’s Circle and Pratiksha Nagar — areas that flood every year. Besides, National College (Bandra), Siddharth Hospital (Goregaon), Chembur Phatak, Milan Subway (Santacruz), Morarji Nagar and Filterpada in Powai were also inundated.
The BMC used 22 pumps from its seven pumping stations, apart from 183 local pumps, to remove the water. It said 120 flood-prone spots were not waterlogged this time due to the various measures it had taken.
The BEST had to reroute several buses at 10 locations, include National college on S.V Road, Milan Subway, Prateeksha Nagar, Sion Circle, Chembur Phatak, Siddharth Hospital in Goregaon (West), Antop Hill and Filterpada.
Collapses and crashes
The city saw seven incidents of slab collapse. In Andheri (East), Rajkumari Goud (37) was injured when the slab of a balcony fell on her. She has been admitted to Cooper Hospital and is critical.
A burst pipeline caused a road to cave in near Gol Masjid at Anandilal Podar Marg in Marine Lines around 4.30 p.m. “We are not sure what caused the pipeline to burst, but we will find out. There is no sign of tampering. The pipeline was very old,” said Ashok Tawadiya, BMC hydraulic engineer.
The road had to be closed to traffic for repairs. “At first, there was slight congestion, but we created a diversion after which traffic flow was smooth,” said inspector Narendra Talegonkar of the Azad Maidan traffic police.
Municipal engineers told The Hindu that pipeline repairs will be carried out overnight, and water supply will not be affected.
In another incident, an elevator crashed at Ramabai Nagar in Ghatkopar (East)around 7.30 p.m. A wire of the elevator in Shanti Sagar Police Housing Society broke, causing the crash. Four people were admitted to Rajawadi Hospital with injuries. They are stable.
Suburban trains were running around 15 to 20 minutes late on all three lines. There were no technical snags, except for a track fault at Bandra station, which was resolved before rush hours.
At Bhayander, services towards Churchgate were stopped between 2.10 p.m. and 2.40 p.m. as water entered the tracks. Trains were running with speed restrictions due to low visibility and water on the tracks in areas like Sion and Matunga on the Central Line.
Express trains coming into the city on the Western Line were delayed due to rain near Valsad. Four trains were rescheduled.
