MAROONED

Suburbs record 668 mm of rain in 12 hours, which is almost twice the previous
high of 375 mm in 1974, that too in 24 hours

This is a railway station , dont mistake for a river !!!!!!!

HIGH TIDE ON THE TRACKS
1:30 PM DOMBIVLI STATION

Thane sinks, bears the brunt of flood fury

Thane: This town took the brunt of the flooding on Tuesday. Incessant rains brought
the satellite city to a standstill, forcing the district administration to seek military
assistance.
Four persons were missing and over 6,000 people in Bhiwandi, Thane city and Vashi
were evacuated to "safer'' areas; powerloom hub Bhiwandi got 340 mm of rain,
followed by 281 mm in Thane, 262 mm in Vasai and 253 mm in Kalyan. Ambarnath
recorded 200 mm in four hours itself.
What added to the panic was Thane collector Nandkumar Jantre's announcement
around 3 pm that it had to release water from the Barvi dam in order to avert
another disaster. The district administration expected the release to add to the floods
but late-evening reports said the fear was unwarranted.
Around 200 civil defence personnel were deployed and more were likely at the time
of going to the press.
First to suffer the after-effects were Ambernath and Badlapur, which were already
under a few feet of water around 3 pm. Mharal village on Kalyan-Murbad road was
also submerged. Rescue operations began at Samrat Ashoka Chowk in Sector 20,
Ulhasnagar, with fire brigade officials saying that people staying in low-lying areas
had not realised the magnitude of the problem and were not responding to their
repeated requests to leave their homes. Two children were feared to have been
washed away in Ulhasnagar; 35 were marooned in Sector 20.
Thane city's Riyaz Chawl was under three feet of water. Water gushed into ground-
floor flats in Shrirang society and Vrindavan, the city's chronic flooding spots. All
major roads in the city, including its entry points near Teen Hath Naka, were under
two feet of water.
By later afternoon, the fire brigade had conducted 11 rescue operations, one of
which was at Vasant Vihar school. There was heavy traffic congestion on Ghodbunder
Road while at Chandanvadi, bridges over overflowing nalas were submerged. Most
schools in the area began sending children home as soon as they realised the
magniture of the flooding. There was over nearly three-feet-high water level in
Lokmanya Nagar, a slum with a population of over 35,000 at the Yeoor foothills.
Electricity was turned off by the MSEB as a precautionary measure.

Lakes fill up

The city's lakes steadily ap proach high-water markTimes

News NetworkMumbai: Brihamnumbai Municipal Corporation's hydraulic
engineers are looking at the rising levels of the lakes that provide the water
the city drinks with a fair degree of apprehension.One of the six lakes,
Modak Sagar, is already flowing a centimetre above the level it can hold and
another - Bhatsa - is just 40 cm below that mark. All the others were
approximating that level, officials said, providing figures to back up their
claim.And, in what could be another danger signal, five of the six lakes have
shown a rise in their level. Tansa, officials said, recorded the highest with a
36-cm rise. Modak Sagar, however, has already flowed over.

Mumbai

Transport: Suburban train services on both lines came to a halt by 4 pm. No

outstation train could enter the city from 3 pm. No landing and take-off after 2.30
pm.
Schools: Schools and colleges shut for two days
Telephone & power: Mobile phones let users down when most needed and power
supply to several suburbs was switched off as a precaution
Forecast: Heavy rains for next 48 hours
Casualty: 7

Bad Spots Around City

Where: Badlapur, Ambernath, Ulhasnagar, Bhiwandi, Thane, Mumbai-Pune

expressway, Pen, Panvel, Mangaon-Roha, Chiplun, Khed and Sangmeshwar
What happened: Flooding of Savitri and Vashisti |river and landslides at 4
different location in Jui, Kondivate, Loharmal and Walung villages in Raigad
districts. Rail & road network completely disrupted.. Casualty: 150 (approx)
Houses collapsed, streets went under water, cellphones too got into the jam
mode and-just when Mumbaikars thought that it was the last of their problems-
the lights went out. TOI gives you a blow-by-blow account of how the city, that
does not like to sleep, was forced to a halt

Airport under water, city loses link with world

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Mumbai: The runway at the city airport went under a foot of water as airports all
over the world announced that Mumbai was out of the air-link loop because of a
raging monsoon.
As visibility came down to 50 metres (the minimum required is 800 metres for
landings and take-offs) no flight could operate after 2.30 pm. But the effect was felt
half the globe away in several continents.
Meena Kinikar, a college teacher, was only one of those waiting at airports in Europe.
She was waiting to board the Lufthansa flight LH-756 that was supposed to take off
from Frankfurt to bring her to Mumbai.
"We flew from Detroit to Frankfurt only to hear that Mumbai airport was inundated
and flights had been rescheduled. We were to reach Mumbai at 1 am on Wednesday.
Now we have no idea how long this will last,'' she added, regretting the indefinite
wait.
Back home, domestic passengers scheduled to reach Mumbai after 2.30 pm ended
up landing in the neighbouring states.
"Two Indian Airlines flights from Mangalore and Delhi have been diverted to
Ahmedabad, another one from Calicut has gone to Goa,'' said an IA spokesperson.
"Quite a few flights were diverted and many have been rescheduled,'' Saroj Dutta,
executive director, Jet Airways, who himself was stranded in Delhi, said.

Meanwhile, at CST...

Trains, buses stuck, city put on hold

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Mumbai: The city's lifeline - its suburban train service - ground to a complete halt by
Tuesday afternoon, putting a brake on a city known for its always-on-the-move life.
Tracks - at many places - reported more than eight inches of water, putting the
Western, Central and Harbour lines out of service. The Bombay Electricity Supply and
Transport Undertaking (BEST) pressed in service 425 extra buses. But they, too,
failed to take stranded train commuters beyond Dadar and Parel.
Central Railway was the first to be hit, with all rail traffic beyond Thane coming to a
halt by late morning. Residents of Thane, working in the city, started getting calls
about their homes being flooded since the morning itself but were stuck in the island
city.
Tracks between Ambarnath, Dombivli and Badlapur were under eight inches of water
and those between Thane and Kalyan went under four inches.
Chaos reigned at CST, with a few cases of kids getting separated from their parents
being reported; announcements over the public address system, however, led to
reunions in almost all cases. Commuters squatted on platforms, putting to good use
the polypackets they carried. Stalls on the platforms ran out of eating stocks as
people stocked up, preparing for a night at the station.
Western Railway held out till 3.55 pm but heavy flooding between Borivali and
Dahisar soon led to the cancellation of all trains. Commuters, who abandoned their
trains, had to wade through waist-deep water. The Lepers' Colony along the tracks at
Dahisar was submerged.
The roads were not much better with waterlogging at several places. Joint
commissioner of police, traffic, Satish Mathur said vehicular movement trickled down
to a minimum with water flooding subways and thoroughfares. Uprooted trees and
collapsed walls added to the chaos.

It was a day of disconnect on every front-no trains, jammed cellphones and, as a

finishing touch, no power. Mumbai trudges through a day like this every monsoon but
it's never been quite so bad. With large swathes of the suburbs plunged into
darkness because of power cuts (as a cautionary measure against short circuits and
electrocution), Mumbaikars were left groping in the dark.
On Tuesday, the city received the heaviest rainfall within a 12-hour span in the last
31 years, but the dichotomy between rainfall levels in the city (Colaba) and the
suburbs (Santa Cruz) was astonishingly high-33.1 mm compared to 668 mm.
"Rainfall of this volume was last recorded on July 5, 1974 when Santa Cruz received
375.2 mm in 24 hours,'' said Thakur Prasad, director of the regional met centre.
With the weather bureau issuing a warning of heavy rain accompanied by gusty
winds for the next 48 hours, the city and the state have been put on high alert.
Evidence of the sheer force and volume of the water could be seen across the city
with compound walls collapsing and vehicles seen afloat.
It was clear there was trouble in store when the trains slowed to a halt in the
afternoon with reports of tracks being submerged under more than eight inches of
water in some stretches. The worst hit was Thane district. Close to 10,000 people
were shifted from Badlapur, Ambernath, Ulhasnagar, Bhiwandi, Mira-Bhayander,
Vartak Nagar and the Colour-Chem slums to higher ground. In Badlapur, where the
Ulhas river had flooded, two deputy collectors were deployed to tackle the crisis.
By 3 pm, downtown offices had closed and commuters swarmed onto the streets,
desperately hoping to catch the last train home. BEST pressed an additional 425
buses into service but with the roads backed up with nose-to-bum traffic, this was of
little help, although these passengers at least managed to stay dry. Outside CST and
Churchgate, taxis were pounced on and fought over with queries of Panvel?, Borivli?,
Chembur?, which would have normally been met with alacrity, but even the cabbies
knew that their black-and-yellow warhorses wouldn't make it.

150 feared dead statewide

TNN & AGENCIES

Mumbai: At least 150 people are feared to have been killed in the worst floods and
landslides in 16 years in the Konkan region on Tuesday. The casualty figure could
shoot up, with hundreds of people trapped in their villages.
Director-general of police P S Pasricha, who conducted an aerial survey of the
floodhit areas, said, "Several villages were under a vast sheet of water. I could not
see roads in many places.''
Property worth several crores was damaged. Transport, power and
telecommunication networks simply collapsed resulting in untold hardship to lakhs of
people. Rescue and relief operations could not be carried out in several areas
because of the breakdown of transport services, government officials said.
Thousands of people have been rendered homeless.
At least 100 people were feared to have died in their sleep at Jui village in Mahad
taluka of Raigad district when 20-odd houses were razed to the ground by huge
boulders that hurtled down following a landslide, district superintendent of police
Rajkumar Vhatkar said. Rescue operations at the village are still to begin as the
village was cut off from the rest of the state, he said. Thirty-four people were killed
in a landslide at Kondiwate. Three bodies have been removed from the debris, while
rescue operations were on to trace other victims believed to be crushed under
boulders, Vhatkar added.
In another landslide at Roha, eight persons were killed and three more perished in
Poladpur, he said. Chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh said all schools have been
directed to stay closed for the next two days as the meteorology reports have
predicted heavy to very heavy rains in the next 48 hours in Mumbai, Thane and the
Konkan region.
Army and naval personnel have been pressed into service and they will attempt to fly
down their men in helicopters to the villages in Raigad. Alternatively, plans are also
in place to deliver help to these areas by using the water route.

Mangaon, Roha worst affected: Deshmukh

TNN & Agencies

Mumbai: The state government has identified two ports-Agardana in Raigad and
Dabhol in Ratnagiri district-which can be utilised by the naval ships to dock and
offload its consignment of food, medicines and other relief material for the flooded
areas in the Konkan region, chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh told reporters at a
press conference in Mantralaya on Tuesday.
A team of the state's disaster management unit has been camping at Santa Cruz
airport with food packets and medicines which would be airdropped once the
clearance to fly the helicopters is given.
"The entire area from Roha-Mangaon, (which is on the Mumbai-Goa highway) upto
Chiplun-Sangmeshwar is worst hit. Two rivers in the region-Savitri and Vashisti-are
overflowing and the water has flooded the townships. There have been four incidents
of landslides which claimed lives in Raigad district,'' Deshmukh said.
Prior to addressing a press conference in Mantralaya, Deshmukh had called a high-
level mmeeting of senior officials to review the situation and put disaster-control
measures in place.
"It has rained a record high. The rainfall in Koyna area in western Maharashtra was
558 mm, which is the highest recorded in one single day in the last 50 years. The
rainfall recorded in Ratnagiri and Raigad was 217 mm and 208 mm till Tuesday
morning alone, in Sindhudurg it was 100 mm and Thane 55 mm,'' Deshmukh said.
The CM said the state had ordered a stop on power generation at Koyna hydel
project and water from the dam is being released into the rivers downstream in the
Konkan.
Deshmukh said the worst-hit is Jui village in Mahad taluka where all the 50-plus
houses have come under the landslides and there is no estimate about the actual
loss of life. "Our first priority is to go out and help the flood-affected villagers.
Already the PWD department have been instructed to take up work on repairs and
reconstruction of the road network as soon as the rains recede. The decision on the
financial relief package for the flood-affected would be taken later,'' Deshmukh said.
In Mahad, three persons were drowned when their car was washed away in flood
waters. Two bodies have been recovered and efforts were on to trace the third one.
Navy pressed into service its helicopters which however could not reach the spot due
to inclement weather. But rescue teams from nearby Mhasla reached the place by
boats through a creek, Raigad deputy collector Sanjay Jadhav said.
This is the second major flood in Raigad after 1989. Rescue and relief operations
were launched on a war footing in most places and thousands of people were
evacuated.