Rains cause havoc in Mumbai

INDIA: Monsoon rains flooded homes, submerged rail lines and forced hundreds of thousands of people to wade through muddy streets in India's financial capital on Monday.

The city's antiquated drainage system is struggling to cope with the downpours, prompting civic workers to use spades and crowbars to open clogged manholes to flush out the rainwater.

"Our locality looks like a sea. There is knee-deep water and rainwater is also entering many houses," Sylvester Nato, a resident of Bandra, among several neighbourhoods in the city's west badly affected by the overnight rains.

The downpours inundated several arterial roads in central and northern Mumbai and rainwater submerged rail tracks at some places. Air services were also running a little late.

Last year, two days of heavy rain exposed the city's poor infrastructure and dismal emergency response in India's richest city. The floods killed hundreds of people in and around Mumbai and shut down the city for almost a week.

"We have reports of some low-lying areas being flooded. But we are much better prepared this time," said Vilasrao Deshmukh, chief minister of Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is capital.

Weather officials forecast heavy to very heavy rains in the next 48 hours, prompting civic authorities to check drainage systems, traffic management and the suburban railway that is a lifeline for most of Mumbai's 17 million people. "There are some reports of water-logging in some areas, but we are working to clear those roads," said Johny Joseph, Mumbai's chief civic official.

Millions of dollars have been approved to overhaul Mumbai's 150-year-old drainage system, but experts say flooding is difficult to prevent because of rampant growth of buildings on wetlands, the city's natural drainage system.

Mumbai, Monday, Reuters