The strongest rain recorded to date in India shut down the financial hub Mumbai, snapped communication lines, closed airports and marooned thousands of people, officials said on Wednesday.
As many as 87 people have been reported killed and another 130 are feared buried in landslides, according to authorities and news reports.
Troops were deployed after the sudden rains — measuring up to 94,4cm in one day in suburban Mumbai, the capital of Maharashtra state — stranded tens of thousands of people.
”Most places in India don’t receive this kind of rainfall in a year. This is the highest ever recorded in India’s history,” said RV Sharma, director of the meteorological department in Mumbai. ”We have to compare it with world records to find out if this was the highest in the world.”
At least 62 people died in Maharashtra and southern Kerala state in weather-related tragedies on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, at least 25 people drowned after being trapped in cars or crushed by falling walls, said Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, the state’s top elected official.
”Twenty-five to 30 people were killed in Bombay. The situation is very grave,” he was quoted as saying on the website Rediff.com.
He said the deaths included seven children killed in a landslide in suburban Mumbai’s Andheri district.
Early on Wednesday, he ordered a two-day holiday and called the army, navy and home guards to help with relief.
”Inflatable rafts will be used to reach stranded people. Please try to stay where you are and don’t leave your homes,” he said.
The state-run All India Radio reported about 150 000 people were stranded in railway stations across Mumbai.
Roads were choked all night as tens of thousands of people were stranded, and the two main highways were inundated. The domestic and international airports in Mumbai, among the busiest in the country, have been shut down since Tuesday evening, and all incoming flights are being diverted to New Delhi and other airports.
India’s previous heaviest rainfall, recorded at Cherrapunji in the north-eastern Meghalaya state — one of the rainiest places on Earth — was 83,82cm on July 12 1910, Sharma said.
”Never before in Mumbai’s history has this happened,” said Mumbai’s police Commissioner AN Roy. ”Our first priority is to rescue people stranded in floods.”
State police reported new landslides in Maharashtra’s Raigad, Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg, and Kolhapur areas. Details weren’t immediately available.
Rescuers started arriving on Tuesday night in Kondivali village, 150km south of Mumbai, hoping to extricate nearly 100 people trapped there, said police officer S Jadav. At least 30 more people were feared buried in another mudslide in the nearby village of Jui.
”We have no information from them, all lines are dead,” said another officer, P Ranade.
The Press Trust of India news agency reported at least 34 people were killed in landslides in Kondivali, and another 20 elsewhere in Maharashtra.
PTI quoted Kerala state administrator Sunil Jadhav as saying eight people were killed in landslides there.
India’s monsoon rains, which usually last from June to September, claim hundreds of lives every year. More than 230 deaths were reported earlier this season. — Sapa-AP