Vendors wade through a waterlogged road in Andheri subway early on Wednesday. (Express Photo by Amit Chakravarty)
Thousands of Mumbaikars were already stranded in floods on Tuesday by the time officials began urging people not to leave their homes unless absolutely necessary. Senior officials also confirmed that they received complaints of delay by some government agencies in activating the disaster mitigation measures. For instance, it was not until 11 pm that announcements were made informing stranded rail commuters that temporary transit shelters had been readied for them in nearby civic schools.
Sources said that a “debriefing” session will be convened in the coming few days to review and fix accountability for lapses in disaster management. “The Met department’s initial forecast for Tuesday was for heavy showers in parts of North Konkan. It wasn’t specific to Mumbai. It was only revised after the city began experiencing heavy rainfall around 11 am. It was an hour or so later that the disaster management authorities issued an advisory asking people not to move out. Most working class people had already begun commuting by then,” said a senior source.
Senior civic official said that the review would include a check on whether various stakeholders had responded to the disaster according to the standard operating procedures. There were allegations that some senior civic officials at the ward level had delayed the initial response and that the public address system of the railways had not been functional.
