Commuters relate horror rain stories

Mumbai: As hordes of workers left their offices on Wednesday evening, they were met with a downpour of over 100mm of rain—at some spots even going up to 200mm—within the span of a few hours, which turned their journeys into nightmares. Many were stuck for over five hours, whether on foot, bike or car, or in trains.

In Ghatkopar, Ulrich Kamat, who normally leaves his office, the corporate park Ajmera Sikova, at 6.30pm, was stuck there till midnight. “The road outside has six feet of water and its force was like that of a river,” he said. “None of us in the 100 offices in the corporate park could leave. To top it all, the road is built with paver blocks, which were coming off with the force of the water.”

It was only after the fire brigade arrived after 11.30 pm that officer-goers heading to the trains were let out from a back road. “BMC officials have come today and are filling up a patch, which looks dangerously close to caving in, with sand,” said Kamat. “The boundary walls of offices have crashed and massive potholes have formed. Taking the forecast for Thursday seriously, everyone left the office early.”

Not too far from there, Salma Sheikh had to leave her car parked in BKC and wait for someone to pick her up to take her home to Kurla at 1am. Other cars too were seen on the road being pushed to the side, their owners with no other choice but to leave the water-choked machines behind.

Bikes suffered the same fate. S K Nahar biked from Kurla to Parel to pick up his son who was stranded after work, only to find the bike wouldn’t start up. “It took us over two hours to drag the bike back to Kurla,” he said. “It was a difficult and exhausting task, as the water current and the push of other vehicles were against us.”

Nahar dropped his bike to be repaired at 10 am on Thursday but there was a huge backlog. “We worked till 3am on Wednesday, as we received almost 50 bikes,” said Abu Bakr Khan, the owner of the mechanic shop. “Today too, we have received around 50, and that too after asking many to come tomorrow, as there has been a death in the family. Many more will come after the rush dies down.”

When water enters the engines of bikes and scooters, it costs on an average over ₹1,000 to repair, thanks to the dilution of the engine oil and damage to the air filter and spark plug. But this cost can go up, depending on the extent of the damage and build of the vehicle.

“I fear it’ll cost me ₹17,000 if the sensor is ruined, but less if it’s only water trapped inside,” said Sandeep Maheshwari who could not make it from his showroom in Kurla to his home in Powai. “I tried taking my bike, but due to the waist-level water, it fell and then wouldn’t start. I had to stay at my uncle’s place for the night. The water only receded by 2am.”

On Thursday, Maheshwari spent his day cleaning up his tile and sanitary objects showroom as water had seeped into his shop and ruined a few bags of cement. “It was a sorry sight to see people wading through three to four feet of water alongside a lot of garbage from the nallahs and the trash thrown by people on the streets,” he said. “People need to have better civic sense.” Grocery shops along Maheshwari’s road suffered losses, although many managed by shifting their goods over their counters.

Those who managed to reach home, by car and by train, took many hours. Aarti Vishwakarma, who took her usual 7.15pm train from her workplace in Malad, took three hours to reach only up to Dadar. “For another two hours, I was stuck between Sion and Kurla,” she said. “I finally got on to the tracks and walked for 20 minutes before reaching Kurla station. I had to walk a further 8 km to Chembur till I could find a share rick, whose driver charged ₹100 instead of the usual ₹10. I reached my home in Govandi only at 1am.”

Alisha Sequeira, another commuter, took eight hours to do the distance between Badlapur and Goregaon, normally a two-hour commute. She reached home at midnight. “The train stopped due to waterlogging at Bhandup, leading to a long halt at Kanjurmarg with no seating,” she said, exhausted.

Those in cars were stuck in standstill traffic for hours; Dalia Sen at Saki Naka for two and a half hours; Dinesh Pushpan on a flyover in Mankhurd for an hour and a half and then more on the Eastern Express Highway; Purva Mishra on LBS Road for over two and a half hours, as the water level was too high for even buses to attempt to cross.

With the events of Wednesday leaving everyone scarred, Thursday saw Mumbaikars take the weather forecast seriously. Those who could opted to work from home and others left their workplaces early to avoid another possible deluge.