Heavy rain flooded roads and railways in India’s financial capital Mumbai on Monday, disrupting flights and forcing the closure of some schools and colleges, while overflowing rivers elsewhere affected more than two million people.
Just before the morning rush hour, more than 300 mm (11.8 inches) of rain lashed the city of 12 million in the six hours to 7:00 a.m. (0130 GMT), municipal officials said, with more heavy showers forecast later in the day.
Commuters waded through knee-deep water that partially submerged vehicles in many areas as traffic piled up on the city’s Eastern and Western Express highways.
Water on the tracks forced railway authorities to cancel some long-distance trains, they said, while television footage showed some suburban passenger trains, a critical means of daily transport for millions of people, halted on flooded tracks.
More than 250 flights were delayed and at least 30 canceled at the city’s airport, the tracking service website Flightradar24 showed.
The heavy downpour came days after record-breaking downpours in the capital Delhi caused a deadly airport roof collapse.
Torrential monsoon rains have triggered floods and landslides in northern and eastern India, as well as in neighboring Himalayan Nepal, where at least 11 people have died.
More than two million people have been affected by river floods in northeastern Assam, where Kaziranga National Park, home to the rare one-horned rhinoceros, was inundated with six drowned animals, authorities said on Sunday.
State authorities said 66 people have died in floods and rains since May.
Flooding also affected 31 villages in India’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh, on the border with Nepal, the state government said.
