Mumbai Apocalypse : 20 Years After the Deluge
Twenty years on, memory still haunts! On 26th July 2005 , the day began in the usual way. Sky was overcast, Air was thickened with moistures. By afternoon, the rain changed its voice.
“The first 20 minutes were just a downpour. By 3 p.m., it sounded like the sky had cracked,” remembers Rekha Patil, a schoolteacher from Kandivali, whose students were trapped in their classroom until the next morning. “The school bell never rang that day. But every other alarm in the city went off—too late.”
It was July 26, 2005. . By midnight, Mumbai had recorded an unprecedented 944 mm of rainfall, the highest 24-hour total in India’s meteorological history at the time, according to the IMD’s post-season bulletin. Most of it—709 mm—fell between 2:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. An unthinkable monsoon fury. The...