Rains could pour cold water over your weekend plans

When it rains, they say, it pours. On Friday, as incessant rains lashed the city for a better part of the day, a host of troubles poured for Mumbaikars, completely washing away the city administration’s poor preparedness in dealing with the rains.

And this could continue for a bit with the weatherman predicting heavy rains over the next couple of days.

Besides the usual woes of the seasonal — water-logging, tree fall, slow-moving traffic, a part of a two-storey building located beside a municipal market in Bhoiwada, Parel, collapsed around 2.20pm, injuring a 65-year-old woman. “She has been admitted to KEM hospital. Her condition is now stable,” said a civic official.

Between 8.30am and 8.30pm, the city’s two weather stations recorded 91.4mm of rainfall in Santa Cruz and 32.4mm in Colaba. The municipality’s weather stations recorded an average rainfall of 45mm in the city, 42 in the western suburbs and 54 in the eastern suburbs till 4pm.

The India Meteorological Department has forecast heavy rainfall in the city over the next two days, said Met director VK Rajeev. “So far, the city has received good rainfall as compared to the same period in June last year,” said Rajeev, adding that the interior parts of the state in Marathwada and Vidarbha regions has also received good rainfall.

Officials from the civic body’s disaster management cell said that several complaints of water-logging and tree-fall had come in from Hindmata in Parel, Mahim causeway, Andheri subway, Jogeshwari-Vikhroli link road among others. “Between 2pm and 3pm, we received at least 15 complaints of water-logging and around 31 cases of tree-fall,” said an official.

At least 79 de-watering pumps were pressed into service in several low-lying parts of the city and suburbs. “It helped recede the water level quickly,” the official said.

Downpour claims one
Heavy rains led to a person drowning on Friday evening. A fire brigade official said, “We pulled out a man in his late twenties off the Dadar Chowpatty at 5.10pm. Three lifeguards dived into the sea to try and rescue him. We resuscitated him, but he could not be revived.” The man was declared dead at the BMC-run KEM Hospital in Parel.

Grounded
Dampness and low visibility at the international airport due to incessant rain led to several flight delays, four go-arounds, a couple of cancellations and a diversion on Friday.

Sources said the problem was more severe in the morning and afternoon.

“Most of the delays were of around 10-15 minutes,” said an ATC source.

A Jet Airways flight coming from Bhuj was first made to go around and later diverted to Ahmedabad due to low visibility, the source added.