Maximum City, maximum floods

Unlike other cities, Mumbai picks itself up and goes about its business as before

“Mumbai is sinking”, headlined most print and electronic media after the deluge the city suffered on August 29.  India’s urbs prima and its commercial capital actually faces the ordeal of three floods, two seasonal and one perennial. Only one of them is caused by Mother Nature. Mumbai’s average annual rainfall of 2,258 mm is second only to Hong Kong’s 2,398 mm, among all megapolises of the world.  But Mumbai’s marginally smaller precipitation occurs in 79 rainy days (70 of them between June and September) as compared to 138 in Hong Kong. Thus, Mumbai copes with the highest average peak rainfall