A major bridge on Mumbai-Goa highway had collapsed near Raigad district in Maharashtra during the wee hours of Wednesday due to the ongoing heavy rains in Konkan & Goa region.
No casualties have been reported so far but around 20 people have been missing. As per the eye witnesses, two cars and two busses have been feared to fallen into the Savitri river. Rescue operations are underway as NDRF (National Disaster Response Force) teams have been rushed to the spot.
According to the local authorities, almost 80% of the bridge has collapsed, bringing traffic to the halt. There were two bridges one was the old one and one was newly constructed that were running parallel over the river.
The old British-era bridge could not withstand the high pressure triggered by the flooding of River Savitri due to torrential rains in Mahabaleswar and collapsed.
Mahabaleshwar had recorded whopping 389 mm of rain between 8:30 am on Monday and 8:30 am on Tuesday. This was also the highest rainfall witnessed in span of 24 hours during the last 10 years. Heavy Monsoon rains also continued on Tuesday, leading to flooding of Savitri river.
Not only Mahabaleswar, most parts of Konkan & Goa region have been witnessing vigorous Monsoon conditions, giving heavy to extremely heavy rains for the last couple of days.
According to Skymet Weather, these heavy rains can be attributed to the active off-shore trough running from South Gujarat up to Coastal Karnataka. Besides this, a cyclonic circulation is also prevailing over South Gujarat.
Further, we expect no respite from the Monsoon rains, as moderate to heavy showers will continue over Coastal Maharashtra for the next 2-3 days. Few places will also extremely heavy rains during this time period.
Image credit: ANI
Any information taken from here should be attributed to skymetweather.com
