Mumbai rains: Stay home, civic body tells citizens

Do not venture out of your homes, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) directed its citizens, following a heavy spell of rain over Friday night and Saturday morning, resulting in waterlogging across several areas. The BMC said the city will witness extremely heavy rain on Sunday and Monday

Do not venture out of your homes, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) directed its citizens, following a heavy spell of rain over Friday night and Saturday morning, resulting in waterlogging across several areas. The BMC said the city will witness extremely heavy rain on Sunday and Monday. The advisory is an upgrade from Friday’s notice of not venturing near the sea and coast. The BMC, in a statement on Saturday, said, “Heavy rain is expected in the city tomorrow [Sunday] as well as day after. We request you to not venture out, especially near the sea.”

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The city also witnessed a high tide of over 4m, owing to which the gates were closed, and hence the city reported waterlogging, said BMC officials.

According to BMC officials, between 11am and 12 noon, several locations in the city and suburbs received 40-60 mm rainfall due to which waterlogging was reported in several parts of the city. In the city, waterlogging was reported at 10 locations, which included Andheri Veera Desai Road (Sorata Pada), Malad Subway, Antop Hill road no 07, Bandra National college, Hindmata, Kurla Kamani, Gandhi market (King’s Circle), Sangam nagar(Wadala), Sion Road no 24 and Western Express Highway (WEH). As the day passed, water from all locations drained out after the rainfall stopped. Suburban train services on Central Railway (CR) were also disrupted due to waterlogging.

However, activists claimed waterlogging in the city was reported much before the gates were closed. Nikhil Desai, a Matunga resident, said, “At Gandhi Market, waterlogging was reported at 8am itself, and it is not possible that gates were closed at that time. The high tide has been used by the BMC as an excuse for many years now. It is high time they accept that their management is not proper. On Saturday, there were no dewatering pumps present at Gandhi Market when water logging was reported. If this is the arrangement during heavy rainfall warning, the city will obviously have water logging.”

On the other hand, Gautam Rao, a resident of Santacruz, said, “Just two days ago, during heavy rain on Wednesday, there was waterlogging within minutes of rainfall. Assuming the BMC learnt from this, we should not have had waterlogging on Saturday. But again, on Saturday, we had water logging. This is after the BMC set up a newly built pumping station by spending over Rs100 crore.”

Further, the island city’s Colaba observatory got 90mm of rainfall between Friday morning and Saturday evening, followed by Santacruz observatory registered 171 mm. On Saturday, city reported five tree falls, nine incidents of short circuits. However, no injuries were reported in the incident.

On Saturday, local train services were also suspended between Kurla and Dadar railway stations on the (CR mainline on Saturday afternoon at 12.15 pm. Train services suspended due to waterlogging at Sion railway station.

Though train services were operational between Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus(CSMT) and Dadar railway stations. However, as heavy rain stopped and water receded on the railway tracks, train services resumed at 1.15 pm

On the harbour railway, local trains were delayed as they were operating with caution. It was due to waterlogging at Chunabhatti railway station.

There was no disruption of train services on the Western Railway (WR).

The Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) also diverted its buses on 50 routes in the city due to waterlogging at arterial roads.