Air India Employee's Report

Sympathies and prayers for Manny DÁbrew of Air India
who sent in this tragic account from Mumbai:

Hi Guys
Just a few lines to let you know how bad the situation in Bombay was.

Life came to a complete halt, and nothing was working for two days.
No electricity, no trains, no phones (including the cell phones)

The streets of Bombay were rivers of DEATH.

We lost a friend’s sister in a drowning case. She and a friend went
into the watchman’s cabin along with two watchmen, to shelter from
the rain, but the rain water rose so fast that they got submerged, and
drowned. Real Sad!

16 people who decided to stay in their cars, got drowned, when the
water submerged their cars. In the Air-India colony at Santa Cruz (east)
all the ground floor flats were under water, as the water rose till the
first floor. Two families died in their ground floor flats as they could not
get out in time.

At Saki Naka near the airport, landslides killed 40 people in their huts.

Half of Bombay's office-goers spent the night in the office, while those
who got stranded on the highway abandoned their cars and walked
home, or should I say “waded” home in waist deep water. 100 school
kids too spent the night in their school.1000 cattle and 15,000 sheep
and goats too died in the floods.

Neil too spent the night at his office, as the water had reached the1st floor
of his office building. His car is completely ruined. Poor guy this is the
second time disaster struck his car, the first being the accident we had in Goa.

The airport which was closed for 3 days, started functioning yesterday
with only one runway being operational, and this morning an Air-India Jumbo
coming from Bangalor on the way to Chicago skidded off the runway, and
blocked it. All pax and crew are safe, but the airport is closed again.

Air India Boeing skids off runway in Mumbai

"The nose-wheel of the Boeing, which was carrying 335 passenger
and crew from Bangalore to Mumbai, hit the runway lights at the
end of the runway before getting stuck in the slushy ground at
around 7 am, Airport sources said here adding it was raining
heavily at that time."
ExpressIndia article

Yahoo News article


I guess if you get onto Indiatimes.com (registration required)
you will get more news and pictures.

I am still waiting for Air-India to call me for a flight. Till then all I can say is
let's pray for things to get normal soon.

Manny