Mumbai rains: Outstation trains bunched for up to 12 hours near Nalasopara

MUMBAI: Passengers stranded aboard intercity trains spent many anxious hours along Vasai, Nalasopara, Virar and Dahanu as the tracks flooded, bringing the locomotives to a halt. Their ordeal lasting 12 hours or more, without food and water, was compounded by lugging baggage through waist-deep water amid rumours of snake sightings.
The authorities came up woefully short as travellers were left to their own devices.Only Sikh gurdwara volunteers and Good Samaritans in the neighbourhood brought them food and water.
The bunching of trains along Nalasopara began with the Vadodara Express 12928 at 3.25am. This train which runs down Vadodara to Mumbai Central was worst affected. Vadodara Express has a night-long six hour journey and no pantry car so the passengers were left without food and water.
At 11.34am Western Railway announced that it was arranging food for the weary travellers. However, the special train carrying about 2,000 food packets was despatched from Mumbai Central to Naigaon as late as 7.00pm when most of them had gone home already.
Chandni T, the daughter of a kidney patient on dialysis, and a woman Fizza travelling with her elderly mother tweeted their discomfort. Chandni's father was stuck from 5.00am and was finally on his way home 13 hours later at 6.00pm.
Daksha Karwatkar said senior citizens and children were travelling in her AC coach whose lights and air conditioning had stopped functioning. She said, "We had a harrowing experience. Only a few local residents offered food and water. We are between Virar and Nallasopara for 12 hours. The coach is so stuffy. We are waiting for the water to recede."
Around 2.00pm, Joy Oza, 27, jumped off Vadodara Express and waded through the tracks. He said, "I trudged to Nalasopara highway and took a rickshaw to Dahisar. Then I hired a taxi home to Dadar."
The NDRF rescued 411 passengers from Vadodara Express in the evening, some of whom were put up at a nearby dharamshala.
Near Vaitarna railway station, those who were stranded since early Tuesday said that the toilets had turned unusable. Passengers were left without mobile charge, jeopardising communication with anxious families.
Meanwhile 50 members of the Shri Virar Kutchi Visa Oswal Jain Seva Samaj helped stranded passengers with theplas, poha, puri, rotis, tea and water. Volunteer Tarun Vora said they helped those aboard Vadodara Express, Bhuj Bandra Express, Lokshakti Express and Bhavnagar-Bandra-Jamnagar Express among other trains.