Making a comeback after over a month-long dry spell, heavy rainfall swept Mumbai and MMR regions in less than 10 hours. The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) on Thursday declared a yellow alert for Mumbai, Thane and Palghar region but on Friday morning it changed it to an orange alert which is considered as heavy to heavy rain in Mumbai, Thane and Palghar area.
According to IMD, 50.01 MM Rainfall was noticed in the Colaba area and 111.1 MM rainfall in the Santacruz region. It further predicted that the weather will be cloudy and medium to heavy rainfall is expected in the next few days. Mahesh Palawat, the vice president of Skymet weather service said, "After September 10 rainfall will decrease in Mumbai and around the region. Light and moderate spells will be there in the catchment area for the next 48 hours. Thereafter, rain intensity will start decreasing. In Mumbai, there will be light and moderate rain in the next few days. The withdrawal rain will start after 17-18 September."
16 treefall incidents
According to BMC, there were 16 treefall incidents that happened in Mumbai among them 7 were in the city, 2 in Mumbai suburbs and 7 were in western suburbs. There were five incidents of house and wall collapse, Three incidents of electrocution and one incident of landslide in Mumbai.
There was heavy rainfall in Mumbai on Friday and because of the heavy rainfall, Three cows died after electrocuting in Andheri near a petrol pump at Sahar Road Andheri East. Apart from that, water logging incident was noticed in the Andheri subway in the afternoon. BMC had switched on its dewatering pumps and brought the water level under control in the next few hours.
Heavy rainfall was noticed in the catchment area in the last two days. The water stock has reached 93.17 per cent. According to BMC There was 13,07,923 million litre of water in Mumbai on Thursday and it reached 13,48,449 million litres on Friday. There is 40,526 million liters of water increased in lakes. The current 13,48,449 million liters water stock is sufficient for the next 350 days.
Traffic situation
There were no major updates from the Mumbai Traffic Police except for a 'heavy traffic" congestion due to "rains" at the Western Express Highway at around 7:30 pm on Friday. However, commuters as usual provided the exact situation of Mumbai traffic due to the rains, and the ill-management of the traffic police.
Traffic hit the Juhu Circle. due to heavy rains and the absence of traffic police on the spot to control and manage the traffic. The traffic mess started after noon, from Juhu Circle towards DN Nagar Road in Andheri West. Reportedly, construction work near Juhu caused a standstill of traffic. Meanwhile, the BKC Junction too was jammed for hours, which is yet again "caused" by rain, said traffic officials. According to motorists, the traffic jam lasted for more than two hours - and during these two hours, not a single traffic cop was seen on the spot. "A 3 km distance from BKC junction to Tilak Nagar took me 33 minutes. I am excluding the "waiting hours" at the signal - which is estimated to be almost an hour," said Naren Tirodkar, a motorist. On the other side of Bandra, a motorist angrily told this newspaper that it took him 45 minutes to travel from Bandra East to West, which is a mere 2 km road.
The worst hit was the Mith Chowky signal at Malad West, where a long jam of 2 hours was reported. According to officials, it was crossed due to wrong-side driving and backlog traffic - from Malwani, at one end, and Link Road, at another end.
WEH jammed throughout the day
The infamous WEH was jammed throughout the day on Friday. Starting from Kurla's Kalina to Kurla-CST road that extended to the Airport. Meanwhile, at WEH in Goregaon, near Oberoi Mall, a massive crane was stuck on a road which was parked for construction-related work. The backlog generated from Goregaon kept stretching till Vile Parle and eventually affected the movements of the Airport road in Vile Parle. "Some welding work was being done outside Oberoi Mall and the crane was right in the middle of the road, blocking half of the road. It slowed down traffic before finally halting for almost 50 minutes. Who allows you to do all this work in the middle of the day? There were no traffic cops, so it was just a bonus to elevate the traffic further," said Rajan Mhatre, a commuter.
Traffic from the affected Sahar Road towards the Airport and the Andheri-Kurla road. Yet another crane was stuck near JM Nagar Metro Station causing traffic, extending to Marol Naka- all in Andheri. Since WEH is connected to Santacruz Chembur Link Road, the traffic generated at WEH started impacting SCLR's movements. Motorists complained about being stuck at SCLR - and a long jam was created near the Mumbai University campus in Kalina. "A long long jam near University. What surprised me was heavy vehicles passing by - when it's not even allowed. Those heavy vehicles were creating obstruction of traffic but there was nobody to control the situation," said a motorist.
With WEH and SCLR jammed, the Jogeshwari Vikhroli Link Road did not leave to add to the woes. A huge jam was reported outside the Trauma Hospital in Jogeshwari and Captain Suresh Sawant Marg in Jogeshwari West. The waiting time was nearly 45 minutes.
The Jacob Circle near Mahalakshmi and Agripada witnessed a huge mess of a jam that led to traffic queuing for 90 minutes. Jacob Circle, which connects at least seven roads including Anandilal P Marg, Saat Rasta, Arthur Road (Nagpada) and other areas in the South of Mumbai, impacted the traffic causing bottlenecks all over. Further in south Mumbai, the Worli route near NSCI was jammed till Haji Ali junction.
The Eastern Freeway too was reportedly jammed from Mazgaon Dock to Wadala.