Landslides kill 5 in city in 2 days Rainfall Till Aug 29 Higher Than In ’05

Mumbai: The deluge which started on Friday night and continued till Monday killed five people in Mumbai—two on Sunday and three on Monday—and brought trains and other public transport to a standstill. The city's longest spell of showers in the last few years also forced several schools to declare a holiday, while office attendance dipped. 

Landslides, which killed two on Sunday, claimed three more on Monday—one in South Mumbai and two in Rabale, Navi Mumbai.  BRACE FOR MORE DRENCHING  t The city and the suburbs will experience intermittent rainfall in the next 2-3 days, with heavy to very heavy showers at times  t A total of 630 local trains and 10 express trains were cancelled on Monday. CR (Main) services were halted for 6 hours, Harbour line services for over 9 hours  t All civic schools got the day off, while schools in low-lying areas also remained shut  t Mulund (520.07mm), Kurla (517.84mm) and Deonar (510.17) have received the maximum rains over the last three days  t 10 people have died in the state in monsoon-related incidents Downpour likely to drown festivalsIncessant Rains Caused By Cyclonic Circulation, Says Met      Mumbaikars may have a wet Eid and Ganesh Chaturthi, the weather department has predicted. In three days, while Colaba received 411 mm of rainfall, Santa Cruz fared better with 570 mm.      Santa Cruz has now received the highest cumulative rainfall till August in the last few years—higher than even in 2005, the year of the 26/7 deluge. From the start of monsoon till Monday, Santa Cruz received 2855 mm of rainfall, which was way more than 2719 mm last year and 2510 mm in 2005 in the same time period. "In 2005, the city received a very good amount of rainfall even in September (about 750 mm in Santa Cruz), which added to the cumulative yearly rainfall," said a weather official. "It remains to be seen if we will receive the highest yearly rainfall this year, but the current figure is higher than previous years," he said.      Meanwhile, the civic body made 79 pumps operational in the city as water-logging was reported at the usual spots like Hindmata, Parel, Sion, Chembur's Shell Colony, Andheri subway, Milan subway, Khar subway and Malad subway. Officials said the city got flooded because of a morning high tide. When water receded towards evening, only 40 pumps were made operational — 18 in the island city, and 11 in both western and eastern suburbs.      Analysis of the three-day rainfall recorded in the BMC's 35 automatic weather stations shows it poured most in the eastern suburbs. Mulund was highest with a total of 520.07 mm rainfall, followed by Kurla, Deonar, Dindoshi, Andheri and Goregaon — all of which received more than 480 mm.      The incessant rainfall was caused by a cyclonic circulation over north of Maharashtra along with strong westerly winds. "Currently, there is an upper-air cyclonic circulation over west Madhya Pradesh and adjoining north Maharashtra. Also, an off-shore trough extends from Gujarat to Kerala coasts," said V K Rajeev, director of weather forecast at the Indian Meteorological Department, Mumbai.      "Conditions are favourable for vigorous monsoon over Maharashtra and Gujarat. Extremely heavy rain could occur over the Konkan coast," he said. DOWNHILL JAM: One person was killed and an empty car parked close by was damaged following a landslide near Heera Panna, Haji Ali, on Monday