Summer rain brings Mumbai to a halt, in May!

May 18: Perhaps it was the Argameddon scientists had always promised. Perhaps there's worse to come. Taking Mumbai completely by storm at ...

May 18: Perhaps it was the Argameddon scientists had always promised. Perhaps there8217;s worse to come. Taking Mumbai completely by storm at the height of what the calendar says is summer, monsoon fury left three persons dead and brought the city to its knees today. After two days of incessant drizzle, the heavens, which opened up on Wednesday night, turned even more fierce and left large parts of the city in waist-deep water as bedraggled pedestrians and motorists were stranded all over the city today. The only saving grace was the Buddha Purnima holiday.

Three persons were killed and two others were injured in two separate incidents of wall collapse. Both the Western and Central railways were completely paralysed for more than five hours with the Harbour Line suspended even at 9.30 pm due to water-logging along the tracks.

Services between Bandra and Churchgate on the Western Railway, which had come to a standstill at noon, began running from 6 pm. A Western Railway spokesperson said that upcountry trains that leave from Mumbai Central were delayed by about an hour or two due to water-logging.

On the Central Railway, services were suspended between 10.40 am and 4 pm due to water logging at Sion, Matunga, Kurla and Ghatkopar. The Harbour Line remained suspended from 11.40 am. A CR spokesperson said almost 60 per cent of suburban services had been cancelled and while incoming long-distance trains were running seven to nine hours late, outgoing trains were rescheduled by three to eight hours.

The fire brigade said three persons residing at a chawl in Saki Naka were trapped when the compound wall of the adjoining Gurukrupa Society fell on them. The deceased were identified as Namrata Shashikant Agre 34, Vinod Kamble 25 and Prasad Pradeep Jadhav 12. They also attended to over 150 cases of short-circuit, wall collapse and uprooted trees, round the clock.

Residents of a MHADA colony at Ganeshnagar in Kandivli W staged a rasta-roko after their colony was flooded with waist-high water throughout the day. They complained that their corporators and officials visited then only late in the evening after they took to the streets.

While cabbies made hay charging exorbitant amounts, buses and private vehicles had to be diverted through arterial roads due to flooding at low-lying areas.

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In the townships in Thane district, confusion reigned due to the failure of the signalling system on account of Wednesday8217;s drizzle. Even skeletal services between Kalyan and Thane, where the tracks stayed relatively free of flooding, were affected today. Hemlata Barve, who works at Nariman Point, left home earlier than usual. 8220;I thought I was well armed with an umbrella but I didn8217;t get far anyway. I got stuck in a local train between Diva and Mumbra.

Shekhar Kulkarni 23, a collegian from Dombivili, was delighted with the rain for springing a surprise. 8220;I hate slogging it out during the vacation batches,8221; he said adding, 8220;I might hitch-hike a ride from Mumbra to Thane and go to a firend8217;s place to chill out.8221; Won8217;t his parents worry? 8220;I8217;ll tell them there8217;s a train problem and I8217;m stuck,8221; he grins.

While most government offices stayed closed owing to Buddha Poornima, the ones working for private organisations were at the recieiving end of the monsoon8217;s fury. 8220;Buddha seems to smile only on government servants,8221; says Seshagiri Rao, a resident of Ambernath.

The wind left many trees uprooted in Kalyan, Dombivli, Ulhasnagar and Ambernath. The worst instance was off Shivmandir Road where a huge banyan tree came crashing down on the shanties below. Luckily, no one was seriously injured.