Monsoon death toll nears 1 000
2005-07-31 13:09
Mumbai - Torrential rains lashed Mumbai on Sunday, disrupting flights, hampering rescue efforts and bringing more misery as officials said the death toll from the heaviest downpours in the Indian city's history neared 1 000.
Flooding and landslides have claimed 969 lives in Mumbai and other parts of Maharashtra state since the rain began last Monday, with 47 more bodies being recovered overnight, police and government officials said.
The driving rain disrupted rail and air services as the local weather office forecast "moderate to heavy rains in the next 24 hours" and the authorities appealed to residents not to leave their homes unless absolutely necessary.
Incoming flights were routed to nearby destinations while outbound flights were cancelled due to poor visibility caused by the rain. International and domestic flights resumed later in the day when the downpour eased.
Mumbai's airport - India's busiest - had been closed for two days last week due to torrential rains with flights resuming late on Thursday. On Saturday an Air India plane carrying more than 300 passengers skidded off the runway and became bogged down in soft ground.
Schedules disrupted
Train schedules remained disrupted or cancelled on Sunday, rail officials said.
Fresh rains again flooded low-lying suburban areas, where water was knee deep and police issued traffic alerts urging people not to travel on certain routes.
Large swathes of the city of 15 million lay under water after nearly a metre of rainfall fell in a one-day period ending mid-morning on Wednesday, the most rainfall ever recorded in a single day in India.
The waters began dropping on Thursday, leaving, however, mounds of rotting garbage and thousands of bloated carcasses of cows, oxen and goats.
Soldiers, police and rescue workers pressed on with "Operation Recovery", using bulldozers, cranes and their bare hands to remove boulders and rubble from areas hit by landslides earlier in the week, with scores still feared buried under the mud.
Naval officers joined in the rescue operations, a navy spokesperson said.
- AFP