Heavy rains disrupt life in Mumbai, paralyze traffic

Monitoring Desk

MUMBAI: Heavy rain disrupted daily life in Mumbai for the second time in weeks as it causes flooding and paralyzing street and air traffic at the country’s second busiest airport because of low visibility, strong winds, and slippery conditions.

India’s largest carrier Indigo and rivals Jet Airways and Vistara said that they had stopped all flights to and from Mumbai due to unavailability of runways and bad weather conditions.

The airport was earlier shut down for 30 minutes while the downpour hampered visibility.

A deluge in Mumbai last month killed 14 people, wrecked homes and caused chaos in the city of 20 million people.

Tuesday’s rain-delayed services on the heavily used local train network, a rail official said, while road traffic was heavily disrupted by flooding.

The state of Maharashtra’s Education Minister Vinod Tawde in a tweet advised all schools and colleges in the city to remain closed on Wednesday when the weather department forecasting that heavy rains would continue.

Local media reported that flight operations are still affected at Mumbai airport, with a total of 56 flights having been diverted as the main runway is yet to become operational.

The local media said that 210mm rainfall recorded in Mumbai and its suburb 303mm in the last 24 hours until 8:30 am.