Several areas under water, road caves in; IMD issues orange alert

According to senior IMD officials, the heavy rainfall had been triggered by a combination of synoptic situations developing over Odisha, northeast Arabian Sea and the Gujarat coast.

On Tuesday, the IMD had sounded a yellow alert, indicating heavy rainfall in isolated pockets, for Wednesday. However, with the city witnessing heavy downpour throughout the morning, the central weather department upgraded the warning to “orange alert”.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) rainfall monitoring system showed that the western suburbs received 89.87mm rain, followed closely by the eastern suburbs which recorded 87.47mm of rainfall. The island city, meanwhile, recorded 43.32mm of rainfall between Tuesday and Wednesday 8pm.

In the aftermath of the heavy rain, several pockets of the city were waterlogged. Around 12.45pm, the Andheri subway was closed for vehicular movement after 1.5 to 2ft of water accumulated in the compound. Traffic was then diverted towards S V Road.

Besides this, rainwater also inundated the roads of Ketki Pada in Dahisar and Borivali station East Road and the route for several BEST buses had to be diverted.

The road below the elevated Magathane metro station caved in on Wednesday. As a precautionary measure, the exit on the northern side and a lift of Magathane station was temporarily closed.

The concourse area towards the affected road had also been barricaded. The Maha Mumbai Metro Operation Corporation Limited, which takes care of operation and maintenance of elevated Metro Line 2A&7, deployed additional staffers to guide Metro passengers.

Meanwhile, data furnished by the BMC showed that six houses in the city reported some damages. While one such incident was reported in the city, four such cases were reported from the eastern suburbs and one in the western division. Reports of short-circuit also surfaced from four places.

As the city reeled under heavy rainfall, municipal commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal and additional municipal commissioner (projects) P Velrasu inspected Mithi River area in the Bandra-Kurla Complex, Vakola mini pumping station, Dharavi T junction, Gandhi market as well as Hindmata on Wednesday afternoon. While carrying out the inspection, the municipal commissioner urged citizens not to throw garbage in the drains to prevent clogging.

“Due to the careful system of the Municipal Corporation, the water is being drained quickly. Even in the low-lying areas, water drainage was relatively rapid,” read a bulletin issued by the BMC on Wednesday.

Ahead of monsoon, the civic administration carried out repairs as well as desilting works as part of the pre-monsoon works and had already achieved its full target of removing silt by May 24.

By May 31, the BMC achieved 104% of its pre-monsoon desilting target in the island city, 106% in the eastern suburbs and 107% in the western suburbs.