Rain fury claims 30 lives as thunderstorm ravages Mumbai

Mumbai: At least 30 people died in rain-related incidents as incessant heavy downpour overnight during a major thunderstorm pummelled Mumbai, causing landslides, severe water logging and traffic disruptions in the financial capital on Sunday

Rescuers resorted to using their hands to dig up the ground in an attempt to find survivors, local television showed, as authorities said more people could be trapped inside the debris.

Forecasts of further downpours could force authorities to relocate people living in danger zones.

The mega-city and the coast of India's industrial Maharashtra state are expected to receive heavy to very heavy rainfall in the next four days, the weather department said.

"We'll take the decision to shift the people who are living in a dangerous situation to permanent settlements immediately," said Nawab Malik, a state cabinet minister, according to a tweet by news agency ANI.

Within the last 24 hours, authorities have reported 11 incidents of houses or walls collapsing in the Mumbai area, officials said. In one neighbourhood, about half a dozen shacks located at the base of a hill collapsed on top of each other, they added.

Seventeen people died as a compound wall came crashing down on some houses located on a hillock after a landslide, a fire official said.

The retaining wall of the Bharatnagar locality in Mumbai's Mahul area collapsed at 1am, the official said. Seven people were injured and taken to nearby Rajawadi hospital, he added. A civic activist said this is among the 257 hutments that have come up on hillocks in the city. In the last 29 years, 290 people in such localities have been killed in landslides and collapses during monsoon, he added.

Seven hutment dwellers died as six shanties collapsed after a landslide in Mumbai's Vikhroli suburb at 2:30am, a civic official said. Two persons were injured and were sent to a nearby hospital, he added.

A 16-year-old boy died after a forest department compound wall collapsed in suburban Bhandup, an official said.

Mumbai recorded over 250 mm of rain in just three hours (between midnight and 3am), touching 305 mm by 7 am on Sunday.

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) said Mumbai was placed under a red alert, indicating heavy to very heavy rainfall with extremely heavy rainfall at isolated locations for the rest of the day.

Meanwhile, the heavy overnight rains led to Vihar Lake overflowing on Sunday morning.

A BMC statement said the lake, with a storage capacity of 27,698 million litres, is the smallest of the water bodies that are part of the supply mechanism to the metropolis.

Built in 1859, the lake supplies 90 million litres water per day, the civic body said.

The Western Railway and Central Railway briefly suspended suburban train services in Mumbai after the heavy rains, and many long distance trains were terminated or regulated at various stations, officials said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed anguish at the loss of lives caused by wall collapse incidents in Mumbai.

His office also announced Rs two lakh each for the next of kin of the deceased from the Prime Minister's National Relief Fund. A sum of Rs 50,000 would be given to the injured.

A viral video showed a two-wheeler being dragged in water in an inundated street in Chinchpokli area. The BMC said 43 pumps in six storm water pumping stations of the civic body were operating continuously to discharge rain water into the sea and have so far pumped out 442 crore litre water.

(With inputs from PTI and Reuters)