A delivery person rides an electric scooter in a waterlogged subway after heavy rains in Mumbai, India, July 8, 2024. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas
Heavy rains flooded roads and railway lines yesterday in India’s financial capital of Mumbai, disrupting flights and forcing the closure of schools and colleges, while overflowing rivers elsewhere affected more than 2 million people.
Just ahead of the morning rush hour, more than 300mm of rain lashed the city of 12 million for over six hours, civic officials said.
With forecasts of more heavy showers and a high tide of 4.40m in the coastal city, school and colleges shut for the day as a precaution, the authorities added.
“There is heavy traffic on the roads and rail lines too have been affected,” Eknath Shinde, the chief minister of Maharashtra, the western state whose capital is Mumbai, said on X, urging people to stay indoors unless necessary.
Commuters waded through knee-deep water that partially submerged vehicles in many areas, while traffic clogged the city’s Eastern and Western Express highways.
Water on the tracks forced railway authorities to cancel some long-distance trains, they said, while television images showed some suburban passenger trains, a critical means of daily transport for millions, halted on inundated lines.
The rains, coupled with low visibility, prompted airport authorities to suspend runway operations for more than an hour, airport sources said.
More than 300 flights were delayed and 36 cancelled, tracking service Flightradar24 showed.
On X, India’s biggest airline, low-cost carrier IndiGo, said its Mumbai flights were affected by the heavy rain, while another budget airline, SpiceJet, also warned of disruptions.
The heavy downpour came days after record-breaking showers in the capital, New Delhi, that caused the fatal collapse of an airport roof.
Torrential monsoon rains have also triggered floods and landslides in India’s north and east, as well as in the neighbouring Nepal, where 11 people were killed.
More than 2 million people have been affected by rivers flooding in north-eastern Assam, where the Kaziranga National Park, home to the rare one-horned rhinoceros, was inundated with six of the animals drowned, authorities said. — Reuters
