Cyclone Tauktae, now labelled as The ‘Extremely Severe Cyclonic Storm’, hit Mumbai with full fury bringing heavy rains, strong gales which wreaked havoc by uprooting scores of trees, damaged some homes, and disrupted road traffic, though there were no human casualties, officials said on Monday.
The IMD on Monday afternoon upgraded the warnings for Mumbai with ‘extremely heavy rainfall’ with gusty winds that will escalate upto 120 kmph, said an official.
The wind speed of 114 kmph was recorded around 2 pm at the weather station based at Afghan Church in south Mumbai’s Colaba area, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said in a release.
Earlier, around 12.15 pm, the weather station recorded a wind speed of 111 kmph, it said.
Till Monday noon, the city had recorded 79.4 mm rain, while the suburbs notched 44.6 mm, with the south Mumbai bearing the brunt of the downpour.
Several roads were littered as at least 30 big and small trees got uprooted in different parts of Mumbai and Thane, during the night, besides minor damage to several homes, major subways in Malad, Kandivali, Dahisar, Andheri and Santacruz were flooded and closed for traffic, while many lowlying areas were waterlogged.
There was considerable damage in the form of roofs of hutments getting blown away in Dahisar, the name hoarding of the St. Francis D’Assissi School & College – the site for many Bollywood film shootings in Borivali, breaking down, signals, electric poles, hoardings, banners, etc getting uprooted in different parts of the city.
The cyclone hovering around 160 km away from the Mumbai coast this morning, is likely to make a landfall in south Gujarat coast by midnight tonight, said the IMD’s latest warning bulletin.
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