India’s commercial capital, Mumbai, slowly limped back to normalcy on Wednesday evening -- a day after it faced 325-mm rainfall in just a span of 12 hours.
This was the biggest deluge for Mumbai since the 26 July 2006 deluge when it recorded nearly 944-mm rainfall in a day’s time. The 29/8 deluge of Tuesday - saw one-third of the rainfall that Mumbai saw in a day, 12-years ago.
Following Tuesday’s deluge, at least eight persons have died and some others are missing. The deaths were because of drowning and wall collapses.
At the time of going to Press, the trains of Central Railway (CR) and Western Railway (WR), were nearly normal. The road transportation system also returned to normalcy.
Mumbaikars who were stranded at several places like Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, Churchgate, Mumbai Central, Dadar and other stations, took trains and reached home safely.
Lakhs of people of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region who spent the night in stations or in Ganpati mandals, temples, mosques, dargahs, schools, churches, Parsi gymkhanas, Jain temples and even offices reached back homes.
"I was stranded in Dadar, waited for three hours and then went back to office, spent the night, worked in the day and returned home," said Shaibal Gupta, a space seller, who stays in Vasai.
The Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport reported 30 to 35 minutes delay in the morning, however, by evening the flight schedule too was normal.
The heavy cloud concentration over Mumbai eased out by the evening helping things getting back to normal but weathermen had forecast rains in Mumbai and its suburbs of Thursday.
A lawyer, Priyam Majathia, was suffocated to death in his car near Gandhi Market. He was working in a big law firm and had a promising career ahead.
Dr. Deepak Amrapurkar, an internationally-famed gastroenterologist with the Bombay Hospital, is missing after he reportedly swept away in a manhole at Prabhadevi at Dadar.
Even as the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation came under sharp attack and criticism following the 325 mm rainfall in 12 hours on Tuesday, Shiv Sena President Uddhav Thackeray said that the civic body did its best. "The situation was unprecedented," he said, adding that more than 30,000 civic personnel were on streets and so as the corporators and Shiv Sainiks helping out people.
BMC chief Ajoy Mehta said that besides the heavy rainfall in a short span of few hours, plastic bottles and bags and other garbage struck in drains blocking the flow of water to the Arabian Sea. "Since morning, we have removed garbage to the tune of 5,000 metric tonnes," he said.
Meanwhile, places on the low-lying areas where water gushed into dwellings along the Mithi and Dahisar rivers and places in central Mumbai like Dadar, Sion, King's Circle and some places in Thane, were seen putting things in order.
