Mumbai: The city received seven thousand million litres of water on roads and streets due to Tuesday's incessant rain, out of which the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) pumped out 4,756 million litres.
A day after Tuesday's deluge which claimed five lives, Mumbai struggled to get back on its feet on Wednesday, with many thousands reaching their homes after being stranded for over 24 hours.
Civic chief Ajoy Mehta said the situation was extreme as the city received 325 mm rainfall in 12 hours. "There were 23 locations where rainfall was more than 200 mm and 26 locations received more than 50 to 100 mm rainfall. The average rainfall was 200 mm in the whole city," said Mehta.
"Mumbai was flooded because of heavy rainfall. The areas submerged received 90 to 100 mm rainfall in one hour. What happened was beyond what Mumbai's infrastructure could handle," he said.
"The drains are capable of handling only 50 mm rainfall, but in many areas rainfall was beyond this capacity," said Mehta.
He said nearly 30,000 BMC staffers were out on Mumbai roads since Tuesday and had cleared 5,000 tonnes of garbage among other things.
"Now the challenge is to tackle the health issues. Citizens are urged that if they have headache, fever or nausea they have to visit the nearest doctor and not take medicines on their own," Mehta said.
The civic body has started 175 dispensaries with full stock of medicines for this purpose. He said water in the pipelines may get contaminated and so citizens are requested not to drink tap water directly. "Boil it and filter it before consumption," he added.
