IMD issues ‘yellow’ alert as rains lash Mumbai after week-long lull

Rains lashed Mumbai and its suburbs on Friday after almost a week of subdued rainfall activity, which led to waterlogging at some places and resulted in slowing down of traffic, officials said.

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued a “yellow” alert for the city predicting heavy rainfall at isolated places on Friday, a civic official said.

He said that in the “district forecast and warnings” for the next five days issued in the afternoon, IMD updated its earlier ‘green’ alert to ‘yellow’ for Mumbai.

Moderate to heavy rains started lashing the metropolis in the morning, making a strong comeback almost after a week. The intensity of rainfall was more in the city as compared to its suburbs, the officials said. The city continued to receive showers, said officials. Some parts of the city witnessed waterlogging, as a result of which the movement of vehicles on roads slowed down.

Railway authorities claimed that suburban trains were running as per their normal schedule, but commuters complained that there was a delay of 10-15 minutes.

The Andheri subway was closed for traffic around 8.45 am due to the accumulation of rainwater around it.

“Due to water logging, Andheri Subway is closed, while traffic is diverted to Vile Parle bridge & Captain Gore Marg S.V road,” Mumbai Traffic Police said on Twitter.

A spokesperson of the Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport, also known as BEST, said the transport body diverted its buses on around half a dozen routes due to a tree fall incident near Sadhana Vidyalaya at Sion.

Between 8 am and 4 pm, the island city, and its eastern and western suburbs received 19.21 mm, 32.22mm and 37.50 mm of rainfall, respectively, in the last 24 hours ending 8 am, a civic official said.

According to civic officials, IMD has issued a green alert for Mumbai for Saturday and Sunday and has given a yellow alert for Monday and Tuesday.

IMD has also issued a yellow alert for Mumbai’s neighbouring Thane and Raigad districts, along with Palghar district. Since last weekend, the intensity of rainfall had gone down in Mumbai. A mix of sunny and cloudy days was observed over the past few days in the city, which witnessed spells of light to heavy rainfall during this period.