24-hr downpour adds 32 days' water stock





A heavy downpour in the 24 hours between Monday and Tuesday added 32 days of water stock to the seven lakes supplying the city. The lakes now have four months' supply. Also, not only has the season's rainfall deficit been covered but Santa Cruz has got excess rainfall of 78.1mm and Colaba 101.5mm. Weather men have issued a warning of very heavy rainfall-from 7cm to 14cm--in the next 24 hours. Some parts of Thane and Konkan districts may get as much as 24cm.

Between Monday and Tuesday , though, the island city got just 48.3mm and Santa Cruz 26.6mm.
On the other hand, the Vasai-Virar region, Palghar, Dahanu and tribal belts of Jawahar and Mokhada got 176mm, which saw villages get cut off from the city and flooded important roads and residential townships such as Vasant Nagri, Evershine Nagar Nirman Nagar.

The Vasai Virar municipal fire brigade rescued villagers stranded along the highway in Virar. A 10-year-old boy was reportedly carried away by strong water currents in Palghar.

Pelhar dam in Nala Sopara that supplies Vasai-Virar began to overflow. Usgaon dam in the Vasai-Virar region reached 86% of its capacity . Damni dam on Surya river in Palghar also began to overflow.

Water stock in the seven lakes that feed the Mumbai region swelled to 4.9 lakh million litres on Tuesday from 3.7 lakh million litres on Monday .
Tansa and Bhatsa gained the most, 276mm and 247mm, respectively , compared with 66mm and 45mm between Sunday and Monday . Modak Sagar is 3 metres below the overflow mark and Vihar is 4 metres short.

"Bhatsa and Modak Sagar, which have a huge capacity , received widespread rainfall of 247mm and 216mm, respectively . Tulsi is much smaller, which could be why it overflowed. Interior parts of Maharashtra received moderate rainfall while it was fairly widespread in north madhya Maharashtra. The south-west monsoon has been very vigorous on account of an offshore trough as well as strong winds. We expect 95-96% of rainfall in August, of the long-range forecast," said K S Hosalikar, deputy director general meteorology , Regional Meteorological Centre, Mumbai.

Navi Mumbai, between 7am to 7.30pm, got an average rainfall of 50.6mm. Airoli recorded the highest of 63mm followed by Vashi with 50mm, Nerul with 43mm and Belapur 44mm. Morbe dam capacity increased to 77.9 metres from Monday's 76.4 metres.

Thane got a total of 55mm rainfall. There was one incident of wall collapse at Wagle Estate and one person was reported missing while swimming inside a lake at Kalwa.

The downpour brought down minimum temperatures in Colaba to 24.8 degrees Celsius and Santa Cruz to 25.7.

On Tuesday , between 8.30am and 8.30pm, Colaba recorded 11.6mm rainfall and Santa Cruz 45.3mm. The is land city and the suburbs have received more than 50% of the season's required total.

Meanwhile, traffic was comparatively smooth on Tuesday , as it was a public holiday. There some stretches, though, like the Western Express Highway which continued to witness snarls.

The cratered flyover at Malad on WEH caused backlogs around noon. "The northbound stretch of Pedder Road was jammed around 3 pm. The stretch before Mahalaxmi signal was particularly bad," said another motorist.

Slow-moving traffic was reported from Babulnath to Haji Ali, on S V Road opposite Juhu Aerodrome, Vasai, near Huma Adlabs at Kanjur Marg, Aarey flyover on WEH, near Dahisar check naka and near Dindoshi on WEH.

A tree fall threw traffic out of gear at near Hiranandani Junction at Powai.

Heavy water logging was reported at JVLR, Andheri Link Road, Kanjur Marg, L B S Marg near Gandhi Nagar, Sujay Hospital at Andheri East, Andheri Subway and Marol Naka to WEH.