News: Monsoon hits Mumbai, hard

(FE/PTI 01/06/2006) Mumbai/Thiruvananthapuram - The South-West monsoon entered Mumbai today — 10 days earlier than usual and earliest in 10 years — with torrential showers lashing the metropolis and injuring six persons even as incessant rains continued to pound Kerala and Goa claiming 11 lives so far and leaving a trail of destruction.

Heavy rains pelted Maharasthra’s coastal Konkan region, where the monsoon was vigorous, hitting train services as the weather office predicted more showers in the state.

Three people were injured when lightning struck them and an equal number in a wall collapse in Mumbai where the rains were preceded by gusty winds that uprooted trees and knocked out power at many places.

Monsoon had set over Mumbai, coastal Konkan and parts of south-central Maharashtra, Deputy Director (Meteorology) C V V Bhadran said in the metropolis.

Konkan and central Maharashtra had widespread rains since last evening with Ratnagiri recording 64 cm. Several trains were left stranded on the Konkan railway section owing to waterlogging.

Twenty-two fishermen, who ventured into the sea, were reported missing in Kerala where 11 people had perished in heavy rains slamming the state for the past few days. The fishermen ventured into the sea in two groups on May 25 and 26 from Beypore coast and had not returned to shores so far.

The rains had wreaked havoc in Kerala extensively damaging houses and standing crops and inundating low-lying areas throwing normal life out of gear.

Mumbai on alert for mayhem

India's commercial capital of Mumbai was on alert for very heavy rains on Thursday, almost a year after a sharp cloudburst crippled the metropolis for days and killed hundreds of people in the region.

Weather officials have warned of heavy showers in the next 30 hours, saying the monsoon rains, vital for the economy, have reached Mumbai 10 days ahead of schedule.

The alert put authorities on notice as they scurried to check drainage systems, traffic management and the suburban railway that is a vital lifeline for most of Mumbai's 17 million people.

"We have prior warning and we are prepared this time. We had no warning last year," said Johny Joseph, Mumbai's top civic official.

But memories of last year's deluge returned late on Wednesday after a brief spell of rains brought parts of Mumbai to a halt. Some roads were submerged under water and trains were delayed.

"The first rains and already our infrastructure cannot cope. What will happen in the next two months?" asked Sumana Dey, a regular commuter on Mumbai's suburban trains who was stuck in the rains for two hours on Wednesday.

Thousands of people waded through flooded streets and railway tracks to reach their destinations and dirty rainwater entered homes in some northern neighbourhoods. Parts of the city went without power.

Last July, two days of heavy rains exposed the underdeveloped infrastructure and dismal emergency response in India's richest city that shutdown for almost a week.

Millions of dollars have been sanctioned to overhaul Mumbai's 150-year-old drainage system, but experts say flooding from rain is difficult to prevent because builders, in league with politicians, had built on wetlands, the city's natural drainage system.