Heavy rain again flooded Mumbai yesterday after a record downpour last week triggered floods and landslides that killed nearly 1,000 people in and around India's financial capital.
Floods closed key roads and delayed train services in the sprawling metropolis of more than 15 million people, but there were no reports of new casualties or serious damage.
"The speed of the relief operations has come down, but we have deployed personnel and equipment and we are working round the clock," said Suresh Kakine, director of relief for the western state of Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is the capital.
He said 600 medical teams had been dispatched around the state to help treat the injured and cremate the dead. Disease remains a serious threat as dead bodies and animal carcasses are still strewn around the city due to last week's floods, while clean water was scarce in parts as burst sewage pipes polluted supplies.
Financial markets were open and operating normally while schools were shut.
The city's police chief appealed to residents to stay indoors as the Mumbai Meteorological Department forecast "heavy to very rainfall accompanied by strong gusty winds" over the next 24 hours in Maharashtra state.
One official said nearly 21cm of rain fell between Sunday and yesterday morning at Santacruz, the suburb that recorded an unprecedented 94cm last Tuesday.
Smita Gaikwad, who works at a back-office services firm, said she had to move in to her brother's 10th floor apartment because her ground-floor apartment was under 0.6m of water.
"The slums nearby are washed away," she said. "Dead buffaloes are floating on water. We didn't have power for 72 hours."
"Everybody is in a state of numbness," she said.
Before a renewed downpour on Sunday, there were angry protests in the parts of the city where people have been without electricity and water since flooding started last Tuesday.
Film-makers in the city, home to India's prolific movie industry, have started legal action against the state government over its handling of the floods, newspapers reported.
Weather officials believe the heavy rain could spread to Gujarat state to the north, already hit by floods last month that killed over 200 people and left hundreds of thousands homeless.
Officials said 924 people had died in Maharashtra -- 425 in Mumbai alone -- due to landslides, drowning and electrocution in flooded streets.
The weather office says the rains are the worst to lash the city since officials began keeping records 120 years ago.
RSS