Heavy rains lash Mumbai; lead to waterlogging, traffic disruptions

MUMBAI: Mumbai woke up to some extremely heavy rains on Monday morning leading to waterlogging and traffic disruptions at many places in the city.

The India Meteorological Department, Mumbai (IMD) has forecast very heavy rains to continue in Mumbai all throughout Monday.


The IMD Santacruz observatory has recorded extremely heavy rains in the past 24 hours (up to 8.30am today) of 231.4 mm while IMD Colaba observatory has recorded 99 mm of rainfall which falls in the heavy rain category. In case of the suburbs rainfall recorded of over 200 mm makes it the wettest monsoon day of the season so far.



K S Hosalikar, IMD deputy director-general (western region), said that there are three weather systems which are giving Mumbai these intermittent heavy rains. "There is an offshore trough extending from south Gujarat to Kerala, an upper air cyclonic circulation and the strengthening of the westerlies. Such heavy showers will continue throughout the day," he said.


Waterlogging outside St Michael Church at Mahim.

Meanwhile, there have been no flight diversions or cancellations because of rain at the Mumbai airport. Departures are late by an average of 20 minutes while arrivals on time. No visibility problems so far. In case of BEST, the buses have been diverted on 47 routes in eight waterlogged areas in island city and suburbs.

Meanwhile, there was a landslide at Wadala area with at least four cars having slid inside the cave in. No person has been injured in the incident so far. The exit of the adjoining building is flooded with fire brigade vehicles it the spot since early morning.

Owing to the continuous downpour, traffic has been hit at Khar subway, Andheri subway and Malad subway.

While Western Railway suburban trains are running with no disruption for now, there is slight delay due to low visibility in some areas due to rains. Meanwhile, between Virar and Surat, all mail and express trains arriving at Bandra Terminus, Dadar Terminus and Mumbai central are expected to be coming in late.