Heavy rain lashes Mumbai, mudslide disrupts Central Railway

Heavy rain once again brought Mumbai to a halt on Sunday. Central Railway (CR) services witnessed major disruptions after a mudslide at Nutan tunnel near Diva and Kalwa caused slow trains in both directions to be cancelled for a full two hours. The fast line was bunched during that period, with services getting delayed because of it. Meanwhile, Western Railway (WR) services witnessed a delay of 15-20 minutes as well. Parts of the eastern suburbs received heavy rainfall on Sunday, crossing an average of 100 mm. The western suburbs also witnessed heavy rains ranging between 70 mm and 90 mm in a matter of less than eight hours. However, the island city received less than 500 mm of rainfall throughout Sunday.

As per data received from the disaster management department of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), certain areas in Bhandup and Gawanpada in the eastern suburbs received 124 mm and 140 mm of rainfall respectively.

The weather department has predicted very heavy rainfall in Mumbai and its suburbs over the next 24 hours. “Mumbai has been receiving good rainfall since Saturday due to active monsoon conditions.

We expect very heavy rainfall in the next 24 hours due to strong westerly winds and an upper air cyclonic circulation over Gujarat,” said V.K. Rajeev, the director of weather forecasting at the Indian Metrological Department (IMD).

Meanwhile, parts of Dindoshi, Goregaon, Kandivali, Malad and Malvani in the western suburbs received heavy rainfall on Sunday afternoon. However, the island city recorded less than 40 mm rainfall, with parts of South Mumbai receiving less than 15 mm of rainfall throughout Sunday.

Accordingly, the city recorded an average of 15 mm of rainfall, the eastern suburbs an average of 74 mm and the western suburbs an average of 63 mm of rainfall on Sunday.

While the Mumbai meteorological department has predicted continuous moderate showers throughout Monday, accompanied by spurts of heavy rainfall in some parts of the city, it has attributed the same to a cyclonic circulation lying over south Gujarat. This is expected to bring sustained rainfall to the city over the next two days.

The heavy rainfall resulted in water-logging at 15 places in the city, including areas in Mulund, Ghatkopar, Chembur, Dahisar, Bandra, Borivali and Malad. Even though no traffic diversions were reported on Sunday, sources said that more than 50 trains were cancelled and 150 were delayed at the end of the day when the rains hit CR services, inconveniencing commuters.

A coach was damaged around 11 am on the slow line when there was a mudslide near Nutan tunnel. The mud actually slid into a coach near the tunnel, causing panic among the commuters, with the panes of a few windows cracking. But no injuries were reported. The train was sent to a car shed for repairs and to check if any of its parts had been severely damaged.

The tracks were cleared by 12.30 pm, and only then did the slow train services begin. Due to heavy water-logging at Kalwa, the up and down local trains were suspended between Diva and Thane from 11.50 am to 1.15 pm. CR has maintained that they have seen only 22 services cancelled and 32 partially cancelled as a result of this, but the sources said that there was a cascading effect on other services.

CR cancelled a mega block on the mainline, but continued the one between CST and Kurla on the Harbour line.

The city reported a total of 17 trees collapsing, of which two were reported in the city, five in the eastern suburbs and 10 in the western suburbs.