Mumbai: Just as waves of ‘unlock’ relief began washing over Mumbai and the MMR, the monsoon decided to rain on everybody’s plans, making a splashy debut and leaving behind a wet and waterlogged Wednesday. The incessant downpour hit suburban rail and road transport, in what has become an annual ritual. Even as people struggled to cope with Mumbai’s first heavy rains, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation and Indian Railways were busy having a muck-raking match, blaming each other for the chaos.
The Central Railway was severely affected, with disruption of services on both the Main and Harbour lines. Trains from the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT) to Thane and CSMT-Vashi/Bandra/Goregaon lines were suspended from 9.55am and 10.20am respectively. However, the Western Railway claimed that there was no disruption on the Churchgate-Dahanu stretch, though the CSMT-Andheri route on Harbour line was affected by waterlogging.
As people and railwaymen struggled to keep the trains running and clear waterlogged tracks, the BMC and Railways were engaged in a face-off. Mumbai Mayor Kishori Pednekar blamed the railway authorities for not cooperating with the civic body and clearing the rail tracks following heavy rains. Pednekar took a recce of the city to track the waterlogging situation.
However, the railway authorities denied the mayor’s allegations. “We refute the allegations that Railways is not cooperating. We are continuously conducting meetings with officials of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation so that we can deliver the best service to our passengers,” said Shivaji Sutar, Chief PRO, Central Railway.
The railway authorities added that as per the IMD’s forecast and the message from the Maharashtra Mantralaya Disaster Management Control, there was heavy rainfall in Mumbai. Waterlogging occurred at several places in the city like Hindmata Junction, King’s Circle, BPT Colony, Sardar Hotel Junction, Shanmukhananda Hall area, Nair Hospital area, Wadala Library Junction, Mankhurd Railway Station, under Sion Bridge and a few other spots. All these locations are near the CR’s main and harbour line tracks.
From 7am to 2pm, 183mm of rain was recorded at Sion and 213mm at Chunabhatti. “Any rainfall greater than 125mm in 24hrs is classified as very heavy rain. So, for safety reasons, we suspended rail traffic between CSMT-Thane and CSMT-Mankhurd sections after the water level rose above four inches and kept continuously rising due to heavy rains and high tide,” said a railway official.
The CR authorities had set up 152 high-powered pumps to clear water on the entire suburban section, 10-12 of which were at Chunabhatti, Sion and Kurla. They also cleared out around two lakh cubic metres of muck and silt from rail premises. Likewise, the WR authorities said that they had conducted joint inspection of culverts and flooding locations with the respective municipal corporations, cleared 1.80 lakh cubic metres of muck and had placed 223 high-powered pumps to flush out water from rail premises. The WR has cleaned 55 culverts, 53,000 running metres of drains, installed 10 automatic rain gauges, track lifting by 100-250 mm in 15 low-lying areas to avoid track submergence.
There was severe waterlogging on rail tracks, well beyond the danger mark at Sion, Kurla, Wadala, King’s Circle and Mahim, disrupting the services and slowing them down considerably. However, operations were smoother on the Thane-Vashi-Panvel trans Harbour and Nerul-Belapur-Kharkopar lines throughout the day. Normalcy returned to CR by 7.45pm when slow lines on CSMT-Kalyan and CSMT-Bandra/Goregaon were restored. By 8.30, services on the fast line on CSMT-Thane also resumed.
WR services were better off on the whole but trains slowed down between Matunga Road and Mahim due to waterlogging, forced to run at restricted speeds.
