Heavy rain in Mumbai, commuters stranded; schools and colleges closed today

Mumbai:

Heavy rains in Mumbai this evening have flooded many roads and diverted some flights. Vehicles moved slowly on the flooded roads, leading to traffic jams in many parts of the country's financial capital. The Mumbai Municipal Corporation has announced school and college holidays from Thursday.

SpiceJet, IndiGo and Vistara said in posts on X that some flights were diverted.

Vistara said that flight no. UK534 from Hyderabad to Mumbai is returning to Hyderabad due to bad weather at Mumbai airport and is expected to land in Hyderabad at 9.15 pm. Another flight, UK941 from Delhi to Mumbai, has been diverted to Hyderabad and is expected to arrive at 9.10 pm.

“Due to inclement weather (heavy rain) in Mumbai, all departures/arrivals and onward flights may be impacted. Passengers are requested to check their flight status,” SpiceJet said in the post on X.

#WeatherUpdate: Due to inclement weather (heavy rain) at Mumbai (BOM), all departures/arrivals and onward flights may be affected. Passengers are requested to check their flight status via https://t.co/VkU7yLjrw0.

— SpiceJet (@flyspicejet) 25 September 2024

The weather department issued an alert for Mumbai and surrounding districts, predicting “extremely heavy rainfall”. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has predicted extremely heavy rainfall till Thursday morning.

Several suburbs of Mumbai have received heavy rainfall since this afternoon. The heaviest rainfall occurred in Mulund and its surrounding areas, causing flooding in low-lying areas.

In Andheri, a woman fell into an open manhole cover and died. A search operation was launched and her body was recovered.

The IMD weather forecast at 5.30pm said that “extremely heavy rainfall and thunderstorms with lightning and gusty winds at isolated places” were expected in Mumbai, Thane, Raigad and Ratnagiri districts.

According to IMD scientist Sushma Nair, a low-pressure trough runs from north Konkan to southern Bangladesh over a cyclonic circulation over southern Chhattisgarh and surrounding areas and extends up to the mid-troposphere, dipping southward with height.

“This will result in fairly widespread to widespread light or moderate rains and is very likely over Konkan and Goa during the week,” she told news agency PTI.