Low-lying areas inundated as rain continues to batter city, 27 trees fall

The IMD’s coastal observatory at Colaba recorded 98mm rain during its 24-hour cycle, which ended at 8:30am on Wednesday. Colaba received 63mm rain between 8:30am and 5:30pm.

The Santacruz observatory recorded 53mm till 8:30am on Wednesday and 45mm till 5:30pm.

In contrast to the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), the island city and suburban belt of Mumbai recorded low rainfall. Later in the day, the IMD upgraded the orange alert to red alert for Palghar, Thane and Raigad districts, indicating extreme heavy rainfall in these places.

Rainfall data of the past 24 hours showed Colaba recorded 140mm rain, Dahisar 127mm, Kandivali 118mm, Chincholi 111mm and Byculla 105mm.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s Automatic Weather System (AWS) stated that till 8pm, the island city recorded 64mm of rain, the eastern suburbs received 57mm and the western suburbs recorded 66mm.

The IMD officials attributed Wednesday’s torrential rains to convective clouds above Mumbai and the Konkan belt of Maharashtra.

“Rains in Mumbai picked up on Wednesday owing to convective clouds that developed over the northern coastline. Raigad and Palghar districts are experiencing intense heavy to very heavy rainfall, due to which we have issued a red alert in these areas as the existing conditions indicate that rains may continue for the next two-three days,” Sushma Nair, scientist from IMD, Mumbai told Express.

Waterlogging was reported from several low-lying places in the city, including Sion, King’s Circle, Andheri and Vile Parle. Traffic movement on the Western and Eastern Expressways was also affected due to the heavy downpour.

The weather bureau in its five-day forecast has issued a yellow alert for Mumbai on Thursday and Friday, indicating rain activity to recede, while for Palghar, Thane and Raigad, the orange alert will remain.

A total of 27 tree collapse incidents were reported in the past 24 hours on Wednesday, out of which 15 cases were reported from the western suburbs, eight from the island city and four incidents were reported in the eastern suburbs. No casualties were reported.

Besides this, three cases of short-circuits were reported on Wednesday and but there were no injuries or loss of lives.

CM lauds BMC for effective desilting

Following the heavy rain, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Wednesday reviewed Mumbai’s preparedness for monsoon by visiting the disaster control cell of the BMC.

The Chief Minister lauded the civic body for its effectively carrying out the desilting works and maintained that despite heavy rainfall, the traffic movement wasn’t affected.

“This year, the BMC has carried out effective desilting of the drains, as a result of which the water accumulating on the road easily channeled into the drains. I took stock of several low-lying areas in Mumbai, including Hindmata, Dadar, Parel, Milan Subway and Andheri. Waterlogging wasn’t seen in any of these places and traffic movement wasn’t affected,” he said.

Shinde also issued instructions to officials to undertake the requisite pothole-filling works round the clock to ensure no accidents take place.