Dharwad (Karnataka) [India], August 18 : In view of the continuous heavy rainfall in Karnataka's Dharwad district over the past couple of days and keeping in mind the health and safety of children, authorities have announced a holiday for schools here on August 19.
The holiday will apply to all Anganwadi centres, primary schools, high schools, and pre-university colleges across the district.
The Deputy Commissioner, Divya Prabhu, has also instructed the Deputy Director of the Department of School Education to make up for this holiday by conducting classes on one of the upcoming general holidays.
Meanwhile, in response to the India Meteorological Department (IMD) red alert warning for extremely heavy rainfall across Mumbai City and its suburban areas for tomorrow, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has also announced that all government, private, and municipal schools and colleges in the city and suburbs will remain closed for the day.
"The decision has been taken as a precautionary measure to ensure the safety of students and staff, given the possibility of intense downpours, waterlogging, and traffic disruptions," X post shared by BMC said.
Mumbai has been experiencing heavy rainfall since Monday morning, leading to delays in local trains due to decreased visibility and waterlogging at some places. Both the Mainline and the Harbourline are delayed by nearly 10 to 15 minutes. The administration is on high alert, and all necessary precautions are being taken to avoid any mishap in heavy rain.
Central Railway CPRO, Dr Swapnil Dhanraj Nila cited the local news regarding the water logging issue at some places and said, "As per the report available till now, only around 3-4 stations on harbour line Kurla, Chembur, Tilaknagar are having some issues of waterlogging and the points on these stations have been clamped and the movement of trains is delayed on harbour line by approximately 10-15 minutes. On the main line, the delay is around 8-10 minutes, but it is primarily because of reduced speed on account of reduced visibility due to the heavy rains which are reported at various locations from Karjat to Kalyan, Kasara to Kalyan, as well as Kalyan to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus."
The CPRO assured that the administration is ready in case of emergency and said, "There has been an additional deployment of manpower, specifically engineering manpower, who have been deployed at various locations that are previously prone to waterlogging, and they have been equipped with an adequate amount of water removing materials and the motors of high capacity pumps have been provided at multiple locations."