Heavy Rain and High Tide Combine to Flood Mumbai – 300 mm of Rain in 24 Hours June 19, 2015 by Richard Davies in Asia, News · 0 Comment 101141 Heavy monsoon rain in Mumbai, India, has brought wide areas of the city to a standstill. Roads have been blocked, rail services interrupted and flights delayed. Some power generating plants have been shut down by Mumbai electricity board after flooding was considered to pose a danger. Many schools have also been closed for the day. Many areas have seen over 150 mm of rain fall in the last 24 hours. According to WMO, as much as 310 mm of rain was recorded in the last 24 hours in Santacruz, Mumbai. India Meteorological Department (IMD) report that some Mumbai suburbs received 283.4 mm of rain while south Mumbai recorded 208.8 mm rain between in 24 hours between Thursday and Friday. Mumbai Floods, 19 June 2015. Photo courtesy of Khozema Agarwala
4 Metre High Tide
Mumbai is also facing a flood threat from today’s high tide, expected to be 4.47 metres at around 14:30 (2.30pm) local time.
Mumbai was flooded by a high tide almost exactly the same time last year, when the streets of Dadar, Worli and Chaupati were under water 1 to 3 feet deep (30cm to 90cm) on 12 June 2014.
Heavy Rain Along India’s West Coast
Large stretches of India’s west coast have seen heavy rain over the last 24 hours, from Mumbai down to Cochin, Kerela.
WMO Rainfall figures for the past 24 hours (18 to 19 June 2015)
Ratnagiri – 147 mm
Cochin – 96 mm
Mangalore – 52.8 mm
Goa – 108 mm
India’s Heatwave Blamed on Climate Change
Meanwhile, the Indian government has blamed the May 2015 heatwave deaths on climate change. Pramila Krishnan, reporting for Climate News Network, says:
“India, one of the key players in the efforts to reach an international agreement on global warming, has no doubt of its malign effects. It was, says a government minister, the warming climate that caused last month’s devastating heatwave”.
From mid-April till the end of May, nearly 2,200 people were killed by the heat − 1,636 of them in Andhra Pradesh, the worst-affected state. The normal May figure for the whole of India is about 1,000 heat-related deaths.
Dr Harsh Vardhan, India’s Minister of Science and Technology and Earth Sciences, has blamed the heat deaths squarely on climate change”.
