The last 3 days there was nothing but a series of bad incidents, which rocked Mumbai. Here is my part of the story.

26th July 2005 – I come to work at 13:30 and it’s starting to rain outside. I come into work and start the daily routine. At about 15:30 the office declares a holiday because of heavy rains outside. I didn’t think that it was that heavy and said it was pointless leaving right now and resumed working till about 16:30. At that time the lights in the entire building went out. I went up stairs to find out what went wrong and then saw that the whole of Santacruz had lost electricity. Since there was nothing better to do I decided to finally leave for home. Another work mate accompanied me till Khar after that I was on my own. As I left work it was only then that I saw the water level for myself. I stand 5’10” and the water level was till my chest. It was pouring heavily and there were cars that were completely submerged in water. I had never seen anything like this before in my life. It took me a good 1.5 hours to reach home safely. Whilst on my way home I stopped to check on my friend and found out that she was a little ill and still at work. I reached home and when I was approaching to my place I got a little paranoid about the water doing damage to my building. When I got home I saw that the water levels were just ankle high. I thanked God that nothing severe happened out there. We had to electricity for a good 17hours from the time I reached home. I called up a few friends to find out how things were at their places. A good friends house and shop were flooded pretty bad. The house survived but the shop got screwed. Well I went to sleep that night without any electricity. The next day I rose without a decent nights sleep and met up with a friend… I called some more friends up to find out how things were but just got bad news… My close friends friend passed away because she drowned… her name was Minal and I knew here. She was a very sweet person and it was shocking when I heard that she passed away… I never knew that the rains could be so bad… Today after 3 days things are simmering down but the death toll is pretty high… here are some of the stats I managed to pickup from the news.

This was the highest amount of rainfall Mumbai had ever received. Approx. 37inches of rain.

The death toll caused by the rains stand at 452. The PM had offered relief of 1 lakh to the dead peoples families and 50,000 to the physically disabled.

Major landslides at Saki Naka.

Due to rumors of a dam bursting and a tsunami approaching claimed the lives of 18 people caused by a stampede.

In conclusion I would like to put up a prayer for Minal.

“Eternal rest give unto her, Oh Lord, Let the perpetual light shine upon her. May her soul rest in peace. Amen.” – Even though you are away your memories will be with us always. We will miss you Minal…. >=(