Dry spell ends, traffic woes begin in Mumbai

After a two-week dry spell, the rain gods appeased the city on Tuesday. A heavy downpour was seen across the city.
Colaba received 31.3mm of rain, while the eastern suburbs recorded 11.5mm rainfall. Western suburbs received 26.1mm rain. Bountiful rain was seen in Byculla, Dharavi, Wadala, Deonar, Chembur and Bandra.

The meteorological department predicted that heavy showers will continue to lash the city in the coming days. The minimum temperature dipped to 25.8 degree Celsius and maximum hovered at 31 degrees Celsius, due to the rain.

However, the rain left citizens stranded. Water logging was seen at Nana Chowk, Cadbury junction, Saat Rasta, Alankar Talkies, Hindmata, SVP road junction, Andheri subway, LBS Marg, Gavanpada and Dahisar Chowk. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation used 30 water pumps to flush out the water.
“Waterlogging was seen at a few sites but with speedy execution the situation was tackled,” said Mahesh Narvekar, chief of disaster management cell.

Public transport was also affected. Traffic snarls were seen at major roads and junctions. Central Railways (CR) and Western Railways (WR) services were running late as well. “It took me over an hour to travel from Bandra to Santa Cruz,” said Sakshi Khaitan, a commuter.

The WR chief spokesperson, Sharad Chandrayan, said that a tree branch had fallen on the pantograph of a train running on the slow track between Grant Road and Charni Road. This led to the closure of the slow line between Churchgate and Mumbai Central stations during the evening. He denied that there was any delay but commuters said that, on average, there was a delay of 15-20 minutes.