After Monday’s mellowed showers, rains to again gather pace from Wednesday

Mumbai receives heavy rain, IMD issues yellow and orange alerts. NDRF teams on standby. Train services affected by signal failure and heavy rain.

Mumbai: A day after pockets of the city were lashed by a 200 mm downpour, rain activity mellowed down on Monday amid a yellow alert (heavy to very heavy rains) sounded by the India Meteorological Department (IMD). Some areas received up to 34 mm of rainfall in just one hour in the morning, affecting local train services between Kalyan and Thakurli stations of the Central Line.

After Monday’s mellowed showers, rains to again gather pace from Wednesday

Three teams of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) have been deployed across the city to tackle any situation amid the forecast of a high tide and heavy rains in the city and its suburbs.

While a yellow alert was issued for Tuesday, rain is slated to gather pace again from Wednesday as the IMD issued an orange alert in Mumbai and Thane districts for the day, indicating ‘heavy to very heavy rainfall’ for various areas.

On Monday between 8.30am and 5.30pm, the IMD recorded 18.6mm of rain at Santacruz observatory, which is the city’s baseline weather station, while it rained 35mm at Colaba observatory. During the same period, Juhu airport received 32mm, Chembur 25mm, Byculla 23.5mm, Bandra 19mm, Sion and Vikhroli 17mm each, Matunga 16mm, Mira Road 11.5mm and Mahalakshmi 11mm.

Western Railway stated that local train services were running normally on Monday morning, however, commuters claimed trains were running late by 5 to 10 minutes. The Central Railway was down in the morning hours due to a signal failure at Kalyan. Since 7.35 am, trains were stuck on platforms 1 and 1A as the signal failed due to waterlogging on the tracks. This had an impact on the down-slow line towards the north end. This led to overcrowding at platforms and inside local trains.

“Four trains starting from Kalyan were impacted as 1 and 1 A are home PFs. It was then repaired and put right around 8.40 am,” said a CR official.

The railway passenger association member Prafulla Shewale said that the trains were running late by 25-30 minutes in the morning peak hours which was bothering commuters who were rushing to offices. During this period trains to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus were also affected as there were delays on the Slow line.

“There was a rush in trains and stations were overcrowded in the morning hours,” said R Kshirsagar, a resident of Dombivali who was going to the office in Kurla. Later in the afternoon, the locomotive of 15182 LTT-Mau Junction failed, affecting the Kurla-Kalyan section. This not only led to delays to local trains but also long distance trains. Unlike on Sunday when there was water logging on tracks at a few locations, on Monday, there were many issues. The Western Railway was not impacted by rains and trains were running with slight delays.