Mumbai monsoon: heavy rains force airport runway closure, paralyse city and leave 27 dead

Some parts of Mumbai have received 500 millimetres of rain in the past 24 hours, prompting authorities to advise residents to stay indoors

Schools and colleges were closed and the city ground to a standstill as its crumbling infrastructure buckled under the strain. A SpiceJet plane skidded off the airport runway on Monday night.

Reading Time:2 minutes

The airport’s main runway was shut after a SpiceJet plane overshot the runway. Photo: Twitter

Published: 1:46pm, 2 Jul 2019Updated: 1:15pm, 4 Jul 2019

Mumbai, home to India’s financial markets and the central bank as well as 20 million people, has been inundated with monsoon rains over the past 24 hours, leaving 27 people dead and plunging the city into chaos.

Dozens of others were injured when at least three walls collapsed and fell on makeshift homes, and rescuers were sifting through the wreckage of the wall in the hope of finding more survivors trapped under rubble.

“Rescue operations are under way and more details are awaited. Besides, a team of fire brigade and local police also reached the spot and took control of the situation,” a National Disaster Response Force official said.

In Mumbai’s suburb of Thane, three people were killed after a wall of a school crashed onto two houses. In the Ambegaon area of Pune, some 200km from the city, six workers were killed in a similar rain-related collapse.

According to various studies, anywhere between 40 to 50 per cent of the city’s population live in slums, which become a sea of blue tarpaulins every monsoon as residents try to keep out the rain.

Select Voice

Choose your listening speed

Get through articles 2x faster

1.25x

250 WPM

Slow

Average

Fast

00:0000:00

1.25x