New Delhi:
A 24-hour red alert has been issued for Mumbai amid heavy rain overnight and Monday morning after the southwest monsoon crashed into the Maharashtra capital a week early. Red alerts were also issued for the Thane, Ratnagiri, and Raigad districts.
Here are the top 10 points in this big story:
- Heavy overnight rain brought swathes of Mumbai to a standstill; roads were flooded, commuter and suburban trains - the city's heartbeat and nerve centre - were delayed, as were flights leaving or landing at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Airport. IndiGo and SpiceJet have issued advisories to passengers to plan for interruptions.
- Nariman Point in downtown Mumbai, the city's business district, received 40mm of rainfall from 6 to 7 am, while Grant Road got 36 mm, Colaba 31 mm, and Byculla 21 mm in the same period. Continuing heavy rainfall is expected for the Mumbai and Konkan regions.
- Visuals from Mumbai - no stranger to paralysing floods after heavy rain - even showed a newly-inaugurated underground Metro station in Worli 'conquered' by the monsoon. In videos shared on X, rainwaters poured down the staircase and filled up the platforms.
- An advisory predicted "generally cloudy sky with possibility of thunderstorms... lightning... winds between 40 and 50 kmph" in Mumbai and its suburbs for the rest of the day, with "thunderstorms accompanied by lightning and intense rain.. with winds from 50 to 60 kmph" in districts around the state capital. People have been urged to take precautions.
- There is also heavy rain in Pune, Satara, Sindhudurg, Palghar, Thane, Raigad, and Ratnagiri districts; red alerts have been issued for the latter three, and orange alerts for Sindhudurg, Alhiyanagar, Kolhapur, Sangli, Solapur, and Latur districts.
- Heavy rains have lashed coastal Karnataka too and daily life in the state's southern districts has been affected, prompting authorities to deploy disaster response teams. The red alert for coastal Karnataka will remain in place for the five days, officials said.
- Tamil Nadu's Regional Meteorological Centre has issued a red alert for the Nilgiri Hills and hilly regions around Coimbatore, with heavy rainfall warnings in place till May 28. The warnings come amid fear of landslides and flash floods in the Western Ghat region.
- The monsoon slammed into Kerala Sunday and caused widespread damage; houses and low-lying lands, including farmlands, were flooded. A tree fell on a moving train in Thrissur and another fell on a man, who died as a result, riding a scooter in Kozhikode.
- Red alerts have been issued for 11 Kerala districts, including Kottayam, Ernakulam, Idukki, Thrissur, Palakkad, Malappuram, Kozhikode, Wayanad, Kannur, and Kasaragod. An orange alert is in place for Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, and Alappuzha.
- South Asia is getting hotter and, in recent years, has seen shifting weather patterns, but scientists are unclear on how exactly a warming planet is affecting the highly complex monsoon, which gives the entire region nearly 80 per cent of its total annual rainfall.
With input from agencies
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