(Bloomberg) -- Heavy rains in Mumbai, home to India’s financial markets, left city districts flooded on Monday, forcing authorities to close schools and cancel flights.
The Santacruz weather station recorded 27 centimeters (10.6 inches) of precipitation in the 24-hour period that ended at 8:30 a.m. on Monday, the heaviest rainfall for a single day in July since 2019, according to the India Meteorological Department.
The scientists released a new red alert at 7 p.m. on the same day, predicting heavy to very heavy rainfall in the city and its suburbs for the following 24 hours.
The downpour revived the memory of devastating floods in July 2005, when the city recorded 94 centimeters of rainfall in a day, killing more than 1,000 people in the metropolitan city that has a population of more than 12 million.
Schools and colleges were shut on Monday, according to a post by the city’s municipal corporation on the social media platform X. Many trains were suspended after several stations and tracks got flooded, while dozens of flights were canceled or delayed due to bad weather.
The chaos comes after the temporary closure of one of the three terminals of Delhi’s main airport late last month, when a part of the forecourt’s canopy collapsed following heaviest one-day June rain in 88 years, killing one person.
After poor rains in June, cumulative showers are now 2% above normal across the country, according to the weather office. About 85% of India, where the monsoon irrigates about half of the farmland, received normal to excess precipitation during the period, it said.
Heavy rainfall is not unusual during the June-September monsoon season in India, where a changing climate is making extreme events more common. Flash floods are also becoming more frequent, exacerbated by silt loads in rivers and reservoirs, and crumbling drainage systems in big cities.
--With assistance from Lou Del Bello.
(Udates to add details and background throughout, and weather forecast in third paragraph.)
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