It was a day of disconnect on every front: no trains, jammed cellphones, and as a finishing touch, no power. Mumbai trudges through a day like this every monsoon but it?s never been quite so bad. With large swathes of the suburbs being plunged into darkness because of enforced power cuts (as a cautionary measure against short circuits and electrocution), Mumbaikars were left groping in the dark.

On Tuesday, the city received the heaviest rainfall within a 12-hour span in the last 31 years. The weather bureau recorded 668 mm in Santa Cruz from 8.30 am to 8.30 pm. ?Rainfall of this volume was last recorded on July 5, 1974 when Santa Cruz received 375.2 mm rainfall in 24 hours,? said Thakur Prasad, director of the regional meteorological centre at Colaba.

With the weather bureau issuing a warning of heavy rain accompanied by gusty winds for the next 48 hours, the city and the state have been put on high alert. Evidence of the sheer force and volume of the water could be seen across the city with compound walls collapsing and vehicles afloat.

The worst hit was Thane district. Close to 10,000 people were shifted from Badlapur, Ambernath, Ulhasnagar, Bhiwandi, Mira-Bhayander, Vartak Nagar, and the Colour-Chem slums to higher grou-nd. In Badlapur where the Ulhas river had flooded, two deputy collectors were deployed to tackle the crisis.

By 3.00 pm, downtown offices had closed and commuters swarmed on to the streets, desperately hoping to catch the last train home. BEST pressed an additional 425 buses into service but with the roads backed up with nose-to-bum traffic, this was of little help, although at least these passengers managed to stay dry. Outside CST and Churchgate, taxis were pounced on and fought over with queries of Panvel?, Borivli?, Chembur?, which would have normally been met with alacrity, but even the cabbies knew that their black-and-yellow warhorses wouldn?t make it.

Knee-deep water

The final straw was when suburbs north of Mahim were plunged into darkness with Reliance Energy and BEST cutting off power in the early evening. South Mumbai was unaffected. Those on the roads had to flounder through knee-deep water, those at home couldn?t turn to the television for news of the flood situation outside.

In other parts of the state at least 150 people are feared dead in the worst floods and landslides in 16 years in the Konkan region on Tuesday. The casualty figure could shoot up with hundreds of people trapped in their villages. Director-general of police P S Pasricha, who conducted an aerial survey of the flood-hit areas, said, ?Several villages were under a vast sheet of water. I could not see roads in many places.?

Property worth several crores was damaged. Transport, power and telecommunication networks simply collapsed resulting in untold hardship to lakhs of people. Rescue and relief operations could not be carried out in several areas because of the breakdown of transport services, government officials said. Thousands of people have been rendered homeless.

At least 100 people were feared to have been killed in their sleep at Jui village in Mahad taluka of Raigad district when 20-odd houses were razed to the ground by huge boulders that hurtled down following a landslide, district superintendent of police Rajkumar Vhatkar said.

Rescue operations at the village are still to begin as the village was cut off from the rest of the state, he said. Thirty-four people were killed in a landslide at Kondiwate. Three bodies have been removed from the debris, while rescue operations were on to trace other victims believed to be crushed under boulders, Vhatkar said.

<I>Source: Times of India</I>

PHONE RAGE

Cellphones jammed when needed most

■ If there was one thing as bad, if not worse, than clogged roads and drains in yesterday?s downpour, it was jammed phone networks. In a city where cellphones are an extension of one?s fingers, the frustration of not being able to use the gadget in an emergency, ran high. The swarm of commuters on the road valiantly held up their umbrellas despite being drenched to the bone, poor visibility, lack of cabs, and the relentless rain did nothing to help. And phone rage rivalled road rage in Mumbai. The phone company that came out shining was the normally maligned MTNL which worked throughout the afternoon and evening. However those stuck in transit could not reach a landline and had to depend on their unresponsive cellphones. The great disconnect lasted for a little over two hours, after which the pressure eased and SMSes and calls began to pulse through. The main culprit was overloading, said telecom companies, given that almost every user was trying to make or receive a call. A BPL spokesperson added that heavy rain could also be a factor since it impaired the travel of microwaves used to send signals. Orange, the city?s most popular network, was among the worst affected. Jayant Khosal, CEO of Airtel?s Mumbai circle said that they had «built in enough capacity for extreme situations», but admitted that there had been «some congestion» during the day. A Reliance spokesperson said its users had a less difficult time staying connected since the network still had more capacity than demand. Among the most anxious were parents whose children were stuck in schools in the suburbs, many of which were waist-deep in water.