Heavy rains lash Mumbai, disrupt road, rail, air traffic; IMD issues alert

Mumbai: Heavy rains since Friday morning led to waterlogging in many parts of the city and suburbs, and disrupted rail and road traffic and flight operations, officials said.

The downpour since daybreak, measuring around 90 mm average till Friday evening, resulted in flooding in many parts of the south, central Mumbai and eastern and western suburbs, leading to heavy traffic snarls in the morning peak hour.

Flight operations, both domestic and international, were severely affected due to low visibility resulting in three go-arounds, one diversion and the same flight returning after a few hours.

A Jet Airways 9W378 from Raipur to Mumbai was diverted to Baroda this morning due to inclement weather over Mumbai, but it returned at 2.15 pm.

Jet Airways flights from Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai, and Ahmedabad carried out missed approach procedures, said officials.

An airport official said the air traffic congestion at Mumbai due to the adverse weather conditions with delays of up to 30 minutes is likely to continue till 8 p.m.

Commenting on the downpour, veteran actor Kabir Bedi tweeted: "Heavy rains in Mumbai turn our building`s lawn into a lake!"

Megastar Amitabh Bachchan observed: "Mumbai rains.. yes nature has been aggressive.. but do not panic, all will be well.. happens to the best cities in the world!!"

Across Mumbai, traffic crawled at a snail`s pace on the major thoroughfares like Eastern Express and Western Express highways, and major north-south roads, delaying office-goers, college, and school students.

Suburban train services on Western Railway, Central Railway, and Harbour Line were also running between 15-30 minutes late.

The CR was hit due to flooded tracks near Sion-Kurla, with services suspended between Sion-Kurla for 35 minutes due to submerged tracks, and the cascading effect hit even the WR and Harbour Line.

Besides Mumbai, the adjoining Thane, Palghar, and Raigad districts have also been lashed by heavy rains resulting in slow moving traffic on all major routes like Mumbai-Ahmedabad, Mumbai-Pune, Mumbai-Nashik, Mumbai-Goa due to waterlogging and other obstacles.

Waterlogging was reported from Sion, Kurla, Pratiksha Nagar, Byculla, Mahalaxmi, Dadar, Kings Circle, Hindmata, Ghatkopar, Bandra, Khar, Santacruz, some subways and station areas of the city.

Warning of a wet weekend, the IMD Mumbai has forecast very heavy rains over Mumbai and coastal Konkan region over the next 48 hours.

As a precautionary measure, all major services like police, fire brigade, NDRF and others are in a state of high alert to tackle any emergencies arising out of the heavy rains.