Rain fails to fill lakes

Rain continued to lash Mumbai for the second consecutive day on Tuesday,but that did not help raise water in the city’s reservoirs to the expected level. The rain of the last two days has added 24,546 million litres to the stores,which can meet the demand for only eight days. Lake levels had risen by 37,026 million litres after the August 31 downpour,an amount that could provide the city water for 10-11 days.

Meanwhile,BMC officials announced that the Tulsi lake,which fulfils a small per cent of Mumbai’s water need,began overflowing on Tuesday morning. It reached its capacity of 131.17 m at 10 am. Vihar lake,which with Tulsi accounts for less than 10 per cent of the city’s water supply,has to rise by 4 m to reach its capacity of 80.12 m.

At 8 am on September 3,catchment areas had 10.36 million litres of water. Upper Vaitarna and Bhatsa lakes,which meet over 70 per cent of the city’s water requirement,had risen to 600.92 m and 135.38 m — an increase of 0.06 m and 1 m. To reach capacity,the levels must rise to 603.51 m and 142.07 m.