Wind Speed Of Over 100kmph At Colaba, Mum Has Rarely Felt This Close To A Storm

Mumbai: Back in November 1940, when cyclones didn't have names, the Arabian Sea threw an unprecedented, untimely night-long tantrum that cost the city more than Rs 25 lakh. In the aftermath, bodies floated at Apollo Bunder, Colaba, Mazgaon docks and other sea faces even as piles of planks, broken masts and other pieces of timber turned the harbour from Colaba to Sewri into one long graveyard of ships.

- Richa Pinto & Sharmila Ganesan

The next one in 1948, again in November, left wreckage in its wake from cargoes carried by around 300 country craft, littering fishing villages in Versova, Danda and Thana too. About 100 lives, chiefly crew and owners of ships and boats, were feared lost and a 1,000-ton Norwegian steamer called 'Marly'--which left Bombay for the Malabar coast--vanished. According to TOI reports, seven people were killed in the city on the day and a hundred injured.

'Tauktae' is probably the closest Mumbai has come since to experiencing a severe storm, with wind speeds of up to 108 kmph near the Colaba seafront.

Tauktae, experts say, was at its most intense at its closest to the Mumbai coast (distance of 120 km) before it propelled away towards Gujarat. An extreme weather event of this nature, so close to the city, portends a warning about the likely consequences of ignoring climate change, say experts.