MUMBAI, July 6: Two days of heavy rains, after a rather prolonged dry spell, seem to have taken Mumbai by surprise. However, the weatherman has some good news. All the catchment areas also have received good rains and Upper Vaitarna is on the verge of overflowing. The suburbs today received the highest rainfall of the season. While 121.9 mm of rainfall was recorded at Santacruz, Colaba recorded 102 mm of rainfall in the last 24 hours.

The heavy showers, however, led to disruption of railway services today. Following flooding of tracks between Sandhurst and Masjid Bunder on the Harbour line and between Sion and Kurla on the Main line, a number of trains were either cancelled or were running late. Central Railway did not operate any trains between 6.30 am and 8.30 am. While CR services resumed after 8.40 am, trains were running behind schedule.

Western Railway trains were also running slightly behind schedule. Some fast trains had to be diverted to the slow track at Dadar due to a mega block. WR officials, nevertheless, claimed most of the services ran as per the schedule.

It took more than three hours for commuters to travel from Thane to CST. The fire brigade received a call to remove a Gulmohar tree which came crashing down near Vidhan Bhavan this afternoon.

Five fire brigade vehicles were rushed to the spot to remove it and clear the traffic.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.