First showers halt the locals: Accumulation of rain water in the tracks damaged electronic points, so that no train could move past Kurla
Mumbai
Thousands of commuters were stranded in water logged tracks as the first heavy showers hit the city bringing the trains on the Central Railway to a standstill. Commuters were stuck in trains for over two hours with absolutely no service on the Harbour line between Kurla and Mankhurd.
The reason for the disruption had more to do with electronic points on the tracks and less to do with the downpour. These electronic points on the intersection of two tracks are used to automatically switch tracks for facilitating diversion of trains. Prior to the monsoon, these electronic points were supposed to be replaced with clams which hold the tracks together to avoid disruption. With the CR busy with the conversion of tracks from DC to AC, 11 electronic points at Kurla junction were not replaced with manual clamps. Result: The accumulation of rain water in the tracks damaged the electronic points disrupting the train traffic on the Harbour line. No trains moved past Kurla on the Harbour line until the points were replaced with the manual clams. In the end, almost 80 services had to be cancelled.
Chief PRO of CR Narendra Patil said, “It takes nearly 35 minutes to manually replace an electronic point with a clamp. The workers on the tracks had to feel the tracks and then fix them with a clamp on the point of intersection as nothing was visible in the muddy waters.”
The signals attached to the tracks also failed. The railway officials suspect the excessive flow of water from the drains caused the flooding. A senior railway official said, “The influx of the water was very heavy and unusual, staff has been deployed to manually check and find the source from where the water entered the tracks.”
Trains under Western Railway ran late by a few minutes.
LOW LYING AREAS: It was the same sinking feeling again as low-lying areas disappeared under muddy water.
In fact, at some places the accumulated water had a depth of nearly two feet, creating problems for vehicles and pedestrians. The water logged areas were the chronic flash points: Kurla, Bhandup, Vikhroli, GTB Nagar, Sion, Kandivli and subways in Andheri and Dahisar.
Traffic came to a halt or crawled bumper to bumper in some sections of S.V. Road in the western suburbs and L.B.S. Marg in the eastern suburbs. Traffic snarls hit both the Eastern and the Western Express Highway, which slice the city vertically.
Till 5 pm, Mumbai had recorded 28.08 mm of rain, eastern suburbs 115.85 mm, and western suburbs 104.93 mm.
WATER SUPPLY: Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, who took stock of the water supply situation in the state, said till date, Maharashtra has got barely 58.50 mm or 26.30 percent average rain. Of the state’s 35 districts, only 16 have received around 25 percent of the season’s total rain, creating the grim specter of a drought-like situation. The government has made arrangements to supply drinking water through 1,464 tankers to 4,676 villages and hamlets facing a water crisis, Chavan said.
He reiterated his appeal to people to use water sparingly and utilise existing resources only for drinking purposes. Till July 2, Mumbai had a water stock of only 111,646 million litres, compared to 416,056 million litres last year, or barely sufficient for around 28 days.
HEAVY SHOWERS IN STATE: Heavy rain was reported from Thane, Raigad, Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg, Nashik, Ahmednagar, Sangli and Satara districts in the coastal and western parts of the state. Hill stations Khandala, Lonavala, Matheran, Panchagani and Mahabaleshwar were also drenched.
CATCHMENT AREAS: Rainfall has also been reported in the catchment areas of various lakes in Thane and Mumbai, which supply drinking water to the western megapolis.
Iram Siddique
