The Hindu Business Line : Air, rail services hit as rains lash Mumbai

For 56-year-old Kantibhai Mehta, it was a quixotic fight against the wind. Balancing his bulging-at-the-seam shoulder bag and an umbrella, he had a tough time walking down the promenade at Marine Drive.

And when the wind got the better of him, upturning his umbrella, Mr Mehta said, "Nothing is working right today. First, it was the train, then a long wait for a cab to office, on reaching there, a large poster saying `Closed for the day' welcomed me and now they're telling no trains to take me home. Rain is not all fun.'' He was voicing the view of city commuters , as heavy rains lashed the commercial capital, for the fourth consecutive day on Tuesday. According to the Meteorological Department, Mumbai received about 18 cm of rain.Mumbai's suburban railway had to truncate its services for several hours due to water logging and traffic-signal snags. "We had to stop our trains midway due to heavy water logging,'' said a Central Railway official.

The 120-kilometre Western Railway, which ferries around 30-lakh passengers everyday, had to run its trains keeping sufficient interval time. "We are running one train every 10 minutes," said Mr Pramay Prabhakar of the Western Railway. Trains were asked to ply on a slow-alert mode on water-logged tracks.

Road, air transport

BEST buses operated on all routes. Though, some buses had to deviate from their scheduled routes due to water logging. Thirty additional buses were pressed into service, said Mr Tambe of BEST.

Flights were delayed due to the bad weather. "The average delay is 15-45 minutes, but some flights were held back by 2 hours," said an Indian Airlines official. The Indian Airlines' Mumbai-Bangalore flight was cancelled. For Air India, there were no cancellations, but all flights were behind schedule.

Corporate offices

Forecast of more rains and gusty winds kept several corporate offices closed for the day. Others downed their shutters after few hours of work. "We had very low attendance and those who managed to come wanted to leave early. So we shut shop in the post-noon session,'' said an official with Reliance Industries Ltd. Others such as TCS also permitted their employees to leave early.

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