Heavy rains in Mumbai from Monday could lead to water saturation and widespread traffic jams. (File)
New Delhi:
Heavy rainfall is forecast for Mumbai and other parts of the west coast and the Indian peninsula over the next three days as the monsoon is expected to strengthen over the Arabian Sea, weather forecasting agencies said on Sunday. .
An area of low pressure is likely to develop north of the Bay of Bengal and move to Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, then to central Maharashtra and Gujarat, resulting in heavy rains, said the Indian Meteorological Department. Jharkhand and Gangetic West Bengal could also receive moderate rainfall on Tuesday and Wednesday, he said.
A monsoon trough is likely to move southwards and strengthen over the next three to four days and hit Goa, coastal Karnataka and Kerala with widespread rainfall.
The meteorological office has issued an orange alert for heavy rains in Kerala’s nine districts, including Kottayam, Idukki, Thrissur, Kozhikode and Wayanad, starting Tuesday.
Heavy rains in Mumbai and its suburbs from Monday could lead to water saturation and widespread traffic jams. It will be the first violent episode after July 15 in the metropolis and its suburbs, private forecaster Skymet Weather said.
Meanwhile, the flood situation in Bihar worsened as more areas were flooded. A total of 53.67 lakh people have been affected in the state and the number has increased by 4.62 lakh since Saturday, the disaster management authority in Patna said.
Fourteen districts were affected by the floods, including Muzaffarpur, the hardest hit.
Early Sunday, the Tirhut Canal crossed its dike in Muzaffarpur district, inundating at least a dozen villages. Two NDRF teams have been deployed on the site.
The Baghmati, Burhi Gandak, Kamlabalan, Adhwara, Khiroi, Mahananda and Ghaghra rivers flow above the danger level in various places and the meteorological department forecast light rains in the watersheds on Monday.
Also on Sunday, more than 60 villages in Uttar Pradesh’s Bahraich district were flooded after Nepal dumped water into rivers from its three dams. It affected more than 1.50 lakh and damaged 171 homes, a district administration official said, adding that National Disaster Response Force personnel were rescuing people.
“No less than 455 villages in 14 districts of the state have been affected by the floods. Of these, 98 villages are stranded, ”a UP government spokesperson told Lucknow.
The 14 districts affected by the floods are Barabanki, Ayodhya, Kushinagar, Gorakhpur, Lakhimpur Khiri, Bahraich and Azamgarh.
Heavy rains are very likely in isolated parts of the state until Wednesday.
The weather was sweltering in Delhi, Haryana and Punjab with no rain. The meteorological department said the situation would prevail for a week.
Delhi’s meteorological department recorded a maximum temperature of 37 degrees Celsius, three notches above normal, and humidity levels soared to 95 percent.
Chandigarh, the joint capital of Haryana and Punjab, recorded a high of 34.5 degrees Celsius, a notch above normal.
In Haryana, Hisar recorded a high of 37.9 degrees Celsius, up two notches from normal. Amritsar and Ludhiana in the Punjab recorded above normal temperatures.
