Record Rainfall Brings Chaos in India

The heaviest rainfall ever recorded in India shut down the country's financial and entertainment capital, Mumbai, yesterday, closing the airport and halting train services.

Tens of thousands of people were stranded in the city, formerly known as Bombay, with many forced to sleep in their waterlogged cars or on the floor of the airport terminal. The state-run All India Radio reported about 150,000 people stranded in railway stations.

In the confusion, a fire on a gas well just off the Mumbai coast engulfed an oil rig, putting the lives of 300 workers at risk. "The platform has been completely destroyed and a multipurpose support vehicle, deployed for firefighting purposes is also on fire," the petroleum minister, Mani Shankar Aiyar, said last night.

"We have little information on the casualty figures and possible damage as incessant rains snapped all communications links," he said.

In a city with more than 15 million people, hotels quickly filled up. Last night it was announced that the suburban train network would be partially restored.

Troops were deployed after up to 94.4cm (37.2in) of rain fell in Mumbai on Tuesday, the capital of Maharashtra state.

Across the state, at least 90 people have been killed in the last two days and another 130 are feared buried in landslides.

"Most places in India don't receive this kind of rainfall in a year. This is the highest ever recorded in India's history," RV Sharma, director of the meteorological department, told the Associated Press.

Until yesterday the country's heaviest recorded rainfall, at Cherrapunji in the north-eastern Meghalaya state in 1910, was 83.82cm. Meteorologists said heavy rains and high winds were forecast to continue for another 48 hours in Mumbai.

Yesterday telephone services either snapped or simply collapsed under the weight of traffic and many families took to texting television stations which ran their messages across screens all day.

There were also reports of children stuck in the classrooms, unable to return home because streets were neck-deep in water.

Jayant Shah told wire agencies that he had walked through the night from his city centre office to reach his daughter. "It was safer that my daughter was in school because I was stuck in my office," he said.

The state's political leadership reacted to the freak weather conditions by announcing a public holiday. "We have declared a public holiday and asked people to stay indoors," the chief minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh, said as water submerged several central and suburban areas.

The monsoon feeds India's vast fertile agricultural belt but also brings misery and devastation every year to the country.

Reporters took to the air in helicopters. Srinivasan Jain, of New Delhi TV, pointed out mini-lakes covering parts of Mumbai. "The city is a mess. For those who are stuck down there it is going to be another uncomfortable night."

The city's bond, commodity and currency markets halted trading yesterday. The stock market stayed open but will close tomorrow. Business losses for the day were estimated at 7bn rupees (£90m).

One concern was that Mumbai's thriving call centre and information technology industry, which relies on its 140,000 workers being connected to the global economy, would be hit hard.

"There was definitely a concern, but most people just slept in the office," said Kiran Karnik, the president of Nasscom, which lobbies for the country's hi-tech sector.