Monsoon death toll reaches 696
Rescuers scouring flood-ravaged neighbourhoods and outlying villages found dozens of new bodies, pushing the death toll to 696 from record monsoon rains this week in western India, officials said today.
Some 370 of the dead were from Mumbai and the surrounding area in Maharashtra state, said N Nayar, an official at the government’s emergency control room in the city – India’s financial hub.
Rescuers continued to search for more bodies in the flooded western state, Nayar said.
The toll included at least 15 people who were trampled to death late yesterday in a stampede at a Mumbai shantytown set off by rumours of a burst dam. More than 25 others were injured.
Residents of the Nehru Nagar slum in northern Mumbai panicked after hearing rumours of a burst dam, said RR Patil, Maharashtra’s deputy chief minister.
“People died due to false rumours,” Patil said. “Fifteen people have been killed and seven are children.”
On Tuesday, the city was hit by an unprecedented deluge of up to 94cm of rain - the heaviest rainfall since India began keeping weather records in 1846. Much of it came over a few hours, transforming roads into fierce rivers and causing landslides that buried dozens of people and cut off villages.
The rains stretched into Wednesday, paralysing Mumbai and devastating huge areas, but ended yesterday, leaving an overcast sky.
The government imposed a mandatory holiday yesterday, ordering all workers to stay home and forcing the closure of banks and the Mumbai Stock Exchange. The MSE was set to reopen today.
In the northern Mumbai suburb of Saki Naka, relief workers and survivors searched the ruins of a shantytown crushed when a water-soaked hill collapsed on top of it. At least 110 people were killed and more than 45 others were missing and presumed dead.
“It was terrible to pull out little babies from under boulders and mud,” said firefighter S Shinde, wiping his brow with mud-caked hands. “The very young and the old just didn’t make it.”
Rescuers piled bodies onto trucks and flagged down private cars to carry dozens of injured people to hospitals.
In Mumbai, most victims drowned, were crushed by falling walls, or were electrocuted.
Wednesday morning, after the deluge, the government warned people to remain in their offices or homes. But for some the warnings came too late.
“I lost count of the number of people who were electrocuted. There were clusters of people who stepped on exposed wires,” said civic relief worker Arya B.
By today, mobile phone services were restored, but landline phone service was still disrupted in some areas. Some neighbourhoods remained without electricity. Most roads had been cleared of the hundreds of cars abandoned after they stalled in the rain.
Knee-deep water remained in some neighbourhoods, but all main roads were clear. Rail and air services returned to normal last night.
Mumbai residents responded to the devastation by opening their homes and distributing food to motorists stuck in traffic and people wading through water. They also tied ropes across flooded roads to help people negotiate the waist-deep water as workers repaired communication networks and towed away abandoned cars and buses.
But many stories ended in tragedy.
Pallavi Jain shuddered as she recalled how no one could help the motorists in a car behind her on Tuesday.
“My car was flooded with water in less than five minutes. I managed to get out and just saw the car sink. I couldn’t believe this had happened on a Mumbai road,” said Jain, 25, a computer programmer on her way home.
“There were two men in the car behind mine and by the time people tried to open their door, it was too late. They couldn’t do anything. The doors were jammed. It was awful.”
State police officials said rescue teams were distributing food and water to people marooned in villages cut off by floods.
Pope Benedict XVI yesterday sent a telegram of condolences to Indian officials.
