Rain slows down city in its tracks

MUMBAI: In the space of 24 hours, heavy rain has once again washed away the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) promises of a flood-free city while disrupting

MUMBAI: In the space of 24 hours, heavy rain has once again washed away the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) promises of a flood-free city while disrupting the city’s lifeline, its local trains. Services on all three lines — western, central and harbour — were disrupted owing to waterlogged tracks and technical snags.

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Signal and point failures along with a two-hour block between Badlapur and Bhivpuri stations affected suburban services on all three lines on Saturday. After heavy rain in the afternoon, tracks at Masjid, Sandhurst Road, Byculla, Sion, Chunabhatti and Mahim were submerged in water. It slowed down services, but did not cause a standstill.

The downpour caused flooding across the city, including the usual spots like Hindmata, Parel TT, King’s Circle, Gandhi Market. According to the data provided by BMC’s disaster management cell, there have been complaints of waterlogging from 20 places.

In Parel and SV Road in Bandra, water entered some houses in low-lying areas. Several roads in Santacruz, LBS Road, Dharavi, Malad, Goregaon, Kandivli were flooded, with water levels up to two feet. Deputy municipal commissioner (DMC), Sudhir Naik said, “There was a high tide in the sea at 11am, when it was raining heavily. As such, we were unable to open the floodgates of pumping stations,which helps disperse the water into the sea.”

At Wadala and Dadar, technical snag-hit trains were pulled off the tracks and services were resumed, sources said.

Snags in the signalling system also added to the troubles. A WR spokesperson said that services on the harbour line were delayed in Bandra between 3.15pm and 3.45pm at the track-changing point, as it was waterlogged, Commuters complained that the CR services were at least 10-15 minute late, while harbour line services were running 20-25 minutes late. The only relief was that the trains were less crowded as it was a weekend.