Heavy rain throws normal life out of gear in Mumbai

Mumbai: Heavy rains threw normal life out of gear in the metropolis on Tuesday, leading to waterlogging in low-lying areas and disrupting local train services that hampered mobility of thousands in the morning rush hours.

Many other trains were rescheduled including the August Kranti Rajdhani Express.

The incessant rains claimed two lives in a wall collapse at Govandi last evening. A woman injured in the incident was admitted to hospital, an official from Disaster Management cell said.

Low-lying areas like Kurla, Chembur, Tilak Nagar, Andheri, Parel and Lower Parel as well as parts of the neighbouring Thane, Navi Mumbai and Raigad suffered water-logging.

In Palghar district, schools were closed for the day as heavy rains lashed the area since last evening, officials said.

The Western Railway's suburban services were affected between Andheri and Churchgate stations for some time due to a point failure that forced closure of two tracks while train movement on the Central line was suspended for sometime as tracks on some stretches were submerged due to the heavy downpour.

"Soon after point failure was reported, our staff swung into action and it was corrected and services were restored immediately," Western Railway's chief PRO Sharat Chandrayan said.

A few services were cancelled as soil beneath the tracks washed away between Palghar and Boisar stretch that led to the closing down of one of the rail tracks.

The suburban trains services were suspended for nearly 10 minutes at around 10.15 AM between Kurla and CST due to submergence of tracks between Sion and Kurla, according to a statement by the Central Railway.

CR's chief PRO Narendra Patil said, "There were few cancellations in the morning as few stretches got submerged, but services were restored by the afternoon. However, trains were running late by 15 to 20 minutes," he said.

During the last 24 hours, Colaba in south Mumbai received 15.8 mm rainfall while Santacruz weather station recorded 61 mm downpour.

"We are having good to very good clouding at the offshores and expect good rainfall in next 48 hours," IMD Mumbai centre's director V K Rajiv said.

The MeT department has issued a high tide warning. The high tide is expected at 3.40 PM and is likely to be 3.98 m high.

Apart from Mumbai, the neighbouring Thane district

received 143 mm rain in the last 24 hrs while Thane city alone got 85 mm downpour. Besides, Kalyan recorded 195 mm rain, Bhiwandi 195 mm, Shahapur 138 mm, Ulhasnagar 150 mm, Ambernath 142 mm and Murbad 98.50 mm, according to official figures.

Due to heavy rains and breaches between Palghar and Boisar, five Express trains of Western Railway scheduled to leave Mumbai this morning were cancelled.

The cancelled trains are Ahmedabad Express, Bandra-Surat Inter-city Express, Mumbai Central-Ahmedabad Shatabdi Express, Mumbai Central-Porbundar Express and Bandra Terminus-Vapi passenger train.

Meanwhile, Palghar District Collector Abhijit Bhangar declared a holiday in schools and other educational institutions in the taluka on account of heavy rains.

In Thane city, a portion of a wall of garden crashed on a vehicle, regional disaster management control room chief Santosh Kadam said, adding that there were no reports of any injuries.

The soil support for tracks on down line (towards Gujarat) was washed away due to heavy rains at Palghar in the last 12 hours, thus severely affecting movement of trains towards Gujarat since the early hours today.