Mumbai rain mess: Who's to blame and why the city floods every monsoon

Mumbai rains

Mumbai woke up to heavy rains on Monday, as the southwest monsoon arrived more than two weeks ahead of schedule in the capital city of Maharashtra. This early arrival, 16 days before the usual date of June 11, is the earliest ever recorded since the India Meteorological Department (IMD) began keeping records in 1950. It even broke the previous early onset dates of May 29 seen in 1971, 1962, and 1956.

Amid incessant rainfall, the IMD has upgraded its weather warning for Mumbai from an orange to a red alert.

While the arrival of the monsoon is a welcome relief from the summer heat, it also brought with it the usual chaos, waterlogged roads, flooded railway tracks, and even submerged newly built metro stations. Images and videos flooded social media as Mumbaikars struggled to commute and go about their day. But beyond the surface of this yearly inconvenience lie deeper problems that continue to go unresolved.

High tide worsens situation

Mumbai is a coastal city, and its drainage system is closely linked to the sea. When there is a high tide and it rains at the same time, the situation worsens. According to a report by NDTV, during high tide, the sea level is already high, so rainwater has no place to go. To stop seawater from entering the city, lock gates are used, but that also means rainwater gets trapped inside until it can be pumped out.

Even though the city has pumping stations in place, they take time to remove the water, especially from low-lying areas like Sion, Andheri Subway, Milan Subway, and Khar Subway. These areas are naturally shaped like saucers due to land reclamation and geography, so water collects there quickly and drains slowly.

Changing rainfall patterns

One of the biggest challenges is that rainfall patterns in Mumbai have changed significantly. Earlier, rain used to be more spread out through the season. Now, more rain falls in a short period. This overwhelms the stormwater drains, even if they are functioning well.

With heavy rain on Sunday and Monday, Mumbai has also broken a 107-year-old record of rainfall recorded in May. The Colaba weather monitoring station has recorded 135.4 mm of rainfall in the 24 hours ending 8.30 am on Monday, which is categorised as "very heavy rain" (115.6 mm - 204.4 mm), NDTV reported.

Pre-monsoon work left unfinished

The early arrival of monsoon has caught the city off guard. Every year, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) carries out important pre-monsoon work like cleaning drains and removing silt. But with the monsoon hitting 16 days early, much of this work wasn’t finished in time. According to the NDTV report, officials have admitted that ongoing drainage cleaning operations were still incomplete when the rains started, contributing to the severe flooding across the city.

Incomplete drainage projects

After the devastating 2005 floods that claimed over 1,000 lives, Mumbai launched the Brimstowad project to upgrade its outdated 19th-century drainage system. The goal was to widen stormwater drains and install more pumping stations. While some improvements have been made, the project is still far from complete.

Officials point to problems like land encroachments and court cases. But for citizens, the result is the same every year, flooded roads, stranded trains, and endless frustration.