Heavy rain disrupts rail, air traffic

Incessant heavy rains accompanied by strong gusty winds continued to lash most parts of Maharashtra and Gujarat, throwing normal life out of gear and disrupting road and rail traffic.

In Mumbai, one girl died and another was injured in Kalina when a compound wall fell on them. In another incident at suburban Mulund eight people were injured when a wall fell on them.

Mumbai's traffic slowed down to a snail's pace as Milan, Khar, Malad and Dahisar subways were waterlogged.

Water logging was also reported in Dockyard Road, Hind Mata, Parel, Mahim Junction, King Circle, Khar and Andheri.

The Western Railway terminated all outstation trains coming to Mumbai at Baroda accept the 2952 Rajdhani Express, which will reach Mumbai via Jalgaon. It also cancelled the departure of most of the long distance trains.

Western Railway Chief PRO Shailendra Kumar said, "Today we will only run Rajdhani Express (2952), Golden Temple Mail (2903), and Jaipur Superfast Express (2955)."

In neighbouring Thane district, Tansa river was overflowing and 5,000 people in 37 villages from near its bank have been shifted to safer places.

Local train services on Western and Central lines were disrupted due to water-logging and trains were running 10 to 15 minutes behind schedule, railway sources said.

People in Dahanu, Talasari and Wada talukas in Thane district have been put on high alert as rains continued, inundating low-lying areas, district authorities said. Efforts were on to restore traffic on Kasara ghat, which was blocked after a boulder fell on the tracks yesterday.

Meanwhile, several long-distance trains were either cancelled or rescheduled due to flooding of tracks to Gujarat and Maharashtra.

Western Railway has cancelled five trains -- 9011 Gujarat Express, 2009 Ahmedabad bound Shatabdi Express, 9215 Porbander bound Saurashtra Express, 9023 Ferozepur Janata Express and 2925 Amritsar bound Pacshim Express.

The Central Railway has rescheduled 4 trains -- 2859 CST-Howrah Geetanjali Express, scheduled to leave at 6am will leave at 2.10pm, 7617 CST-Nanded Tapovan Express that leaves at 6am will depart at 3.55pm, 5645 Dadar-Guwahati Express will leave at 11.50 pm instead of 8am, 2133 CST-Lucknow Puspak Express, that leaves at 8.10am will depart 10.10pm.

Railway tracks were damaged as water from Madhuvan dam overflowed into flooded Damanganga river, 165 km from here, following heavy rain, leading to closure of uptrack on Western Railway on Maharashtra-Gujarat border at 1am, railway sources said.

Between Surat and Vadodara, three stations-- Broach, Parol and Ankleshwar were flooded and the movenment of trains were affected.

Highway near Vapi has been damaged due to heavy rains and traffic has come to a standstill.

Meanwhile, flight services were not much affected by the rains, airport sources said.

However, there were pressure on Gujarat bound flights due to cancellation of trains, they said.

Both national and international flights were being operated as per schedule, though a few minutes late, they added.

Complete coverage of the flood