Rains this season set to rewrite history in Mumbai

Monsoon has created a record of sorts this year. The rainfall witnessed is well on course to be ranked as the highest ever recorded in the city. There have been a number of intense rain spells, yet the city life has not been thrown out of gear even once. 

The data of monsoon witnessed between 1999 and 2009 indicates that there had been at least two rain days every year when the city life was halted, a senior official from the civic disaster management cell said.   

So what has kept the city afloat this year? Senior civic officials attributed the positive results to execution of flood-relief measures taken after the deluge of July 26, 2005, and better planning. 

The Santa Cruz observatory has witnessed 3,309.2 mm rain this year, while the Colaba observatory has received 3,160.5 mm. A Met department officer said that with there being still some time before the monsoon withdraws, the rainfall-recorded is on course to be the highest ever.  

According to a senior official, the Santa Cruz observatory had recorded about 3,400mm rainfall in 2005, the year when an unprecedented rain event on July 26 saw a downpour of 944 mm.

The second-highest rainfall recorded by the suburban observatory was 3,281.7 mm in 1958. The Met officials also suggested that the Colaba rainfall has already surpassed all rain records set in the past 50 years.  

Additional municipal commissioner Manisha Patankar-Mhaiskar, who is in-charge of disaster management operations in the BMC, said that the good show was the result of execution of flood-relief projects.

Five years after the deluge, though many of these works are yet to be completed, civic officials said the results have begun to show. Chandrakant Watve, chief engineer, storm water drain department, claimed that the drain widening works have ensured faster recession of water. This, he said, had reduced the water accumulation time at flooding spots. No flooding has been witnessed at many chronic spots this year, he said.