Monsoon’s First Heavy Showers Throw City Into Chaos

• Monsoon Woes. The first heavy showers of the monsoon took a heavy toll on the city, delaying train services, causing water-logging in several flood-prone areas and the season’s first rain-related fatality. Signal failures in Kurla, Ghatkopar and Vikhroli on the central line, Chembur and in Kurla on the harbour line, and flooding in Malad led trains to arrive up to 40 minutes late on Thursday morning. Flooding and consequent traffic jams in Charkop, Kandivali, the Malad, Milan and Andheri subways, as well as several parts of S. V. Road in the western suburbs revealed the falsities in the BMC’s claim that they were well prepared for the onset of the monsoon this year. A 24-year-old woman was crushed to death after a tree fell on her near an office building in Lower Parel. [The Times of India]

• Tragic Judgement. A US district court in Manhattan has ruled that it was Union Carbide India Ltd and not the Union Carbide Corporation or its former chairman Warren Anderson who were liable for environmental remediation or pollution-related damage in the areas surrounding its now-defunct plant in Bhopal, from which a gas leak in 1984 killed thousands of people. The people and organisations who filed the law suit said they were not surprised by the verdict given that the London Olympics, of which the current owner of the UCC, Dow Chemicals is a key sponsor, are just a month away. [Hindustan Times]

• Petrol Price. Following a fall in global crude oil rates, the price of petrol in Mumbai has been slashed by Rs3.10 per litre. The price cut has wiped out over half the Rs7.54 per litre increase in May to bring the current rate to Rs73.35 per litre. [The Times of India]