Rains claim 19 lives in state; city back on track

MUMBAI: Nineteen people were killed in rain-related incidents in Maharashtra in the past couple of days, and the Met department predicted more downpour in Mumbai and parts of Konkan on Friday.

A government spokesperson said that four people were killed in Ratnagiri, three in Mumbai, two in Sindhudurg, one in Dhule, eight in Aurangabad revenue division and one in Nagpur.

The state capital continued to receive intermittent rainfall but rail and road traffic returned to near normal on Thursday as compared to Wednesday. “Suburban train services have been running smoothly since morning and there has been no disruption in spite of the heavy rains.

There was a delay of 10-15 minutes for a while in the morning but that was due to technical reasons and not because of the rains,” Central Railway PRO AK Singh said.

However, he said long distance trains, especially those running through the Konkan region, were running eight to 10 hours late due to heavy downpour in that area. The Met office sources said rain and thundershowers will continue in Konkan area, which is receiving heavy rainfall since the early onset of monsoon — for the next 24 hours.