Heavy rains kill 5 in India’s financial hub

MUMBAI – Agence France-Presse

At least five people were killed as heavy monsoon rain deluged India’s financial capital Mumbai, causing transport chaos and forcing schools and many offices to close yesterday.

The coastal city of more than 20 million people is the latest to be hit by floods that have ravaged South Asia this monsoon season, affecting millions of people across India, Nepal and Bangladesh and killing over 1,200.

Authorities in Mumbai said at least five people had died since the intense rainfall began on Tuesday, making roads impassable and briefly shutting the suburban rail network on which millions of commuters depend.

“Five people have died in the Mumbai floods. Four of them including two children died due to wall collapse in the slums and another person died due to electric shock,” Tanaji Kamble, a local government official, told AFP.

Kamble said the rains had eased by Aug. 30. “We are monitoring the safety situation across the city and things are returning to normal.”

Cars were submerged and commuters waded through waist-deep water on Tuesday evening.

“I could not find any mode of transport and spent my night on the streets instead of trying to reach home,” said 62-year-old Gangadin Gupta.

He said many people had been left stranded for much of the night until the rail network reopened early Wednesday.

Residents of Dharavi, one of Asia’s biggest slums and home to more than a million people, said much of the low-lying area was under water.

“Most of the shanties and houses in Dharavi were submerged in water and we lost all our valuables,” said Selvam Sathya, 45.

“All of us took refuge on the first floor of different buildings and the water only started receding this morning... I lost all my belongings in the flooding.”

The transport chaos forced the city’s famed dabbawallahs, who take hundreds of thousands of hot lunches from commuters’ homes to offices every day, to cancel their delivery.