Heavy rains disrupt traffic on Mumbai-Goa highway

Mumbai: Traffic between Mumbai and Goa was affected as a river near Kudal in Sindhudurg district swelled up, cutting off vehicular movement for more than six hours on Thursday. Kolhapur in western Maharashtra was also lashed by torrential rains.
    Sindhudurg district collector Vikram Kumar said, “There was heavy rain in neighbouring Kolhapur district and as a result, river levels in Sindhudurg rose. Traffic on the Mumbai-Goa highway resumed after 6 pm. Besides, 140 houses were submerged in the Malwan area and 30 families had to be shifted to a school.’’
    There were no fatalities in Sindhudurg. The road connecting Pune and Sindhdurg was closed and there was waterlogging in Kankavli. Kolhapur collector Laxmikant Deshmukh said that the level of the Panchganga river near Kolhapur city was also rising. “We have shifted 65 families living near Radhanagari dam,’’ said Deshmukh.
    Chief Secretary J P Dange will meet officials in Mantralaya on Friday to assess the situation in Konkan. Apart from Konkan divisional commissioner S S Sandhu and relief and rehabilitation secretary J S Saharia, officials of the Konkan Railway have also been called.
    Operations on Konkan Railway have stopped since last Friday due to a series of landslides at Nivsar in Ratnagiri.
    The KRCL managing director B P Tayal had asked his officials to restart the line by 6 pm on July 30. “But the weather bureau has predicted heavy to very heavy rains in Konkan for the next 48 hours. If it rains heavily, it will be difficult to restart,’’ said Tayal.

Water levels in lakes cross last yr’s mark
    Thanks to a few days of consistent showers in the city and in the catchment areas, the usable content in the lakes has surpassed the content of last year. The water stock in the lakes now stands at 6,71,336 million litres, as opposed to last year’s 6,62,248 ml.
    From the beginning of this year’s monsoon, the content of water in the lakes always stood way below last year’s mark. Even as it crossed the mark a fortnight ago, a dry spell that followed made the content drop, resulting in a big difference between this and last year’s water content. On Thursday upto 3 pm, Modak Sagar, Tansa, Vihar, Tulsi, Upper Vaitarna and Bhatsa received 36 mm, 39 mm, 8 mm, 20 mm, 68 mm and 93 mm of rainfall respectively. Meanwhile, the island city recorded an average rainfall of 8.09 mm, eastern suburbs 16.3 mm and western suburbs 19 mm of rainfall in the 24-hour period between Wednesday and Thursday morning.
    The rainfall in Mumbai is already 76 % of the total annual rainfall whereas the suburbs have received 68 % of the annual rainfall. The levels of Bhatsa lake, the largest supplier of water to Mumbai, rose by 1.75 m on Thursday morning. TNN