Mon­soon rains hit ear­ly on Tues­day August 29 caus­ing flood­ing in the Mum­bai and Pune areas with imme­di­ate action by local HAMS help­ing out dur­ing the adverse weather.

All traf­fic was dis­rupt­ed, even local trains and bus­es were sub­merged and unable to move. Chil­dren strand­ed in a school were left hun­gry and the elec­tric­i­ty also went off.

Satish Shah VU2SVS and Ankur Puranik VU2AXN and 50 HAMS involved arrang­ing food and pow­er for the school. The HAMs of Mum­bai were in touch with each oth­er, even those who don’t have a VHF trans­ceiv­er. The ‘ZELLO app’ was used to con­nect those with­out suit­able radio equip­ment to inter­face with a VHF HAM radio frequency.

Many work­ers were strand­ed in their offices or at rail­way sta­tions until mid­night. Look­ing after the cen­tral rail­way in Mum­bai were the Bharat Scouts & Guides that had under­gone pre­vi­ous dis­as­ter com­mu­ni­ca­tion training.

The recent rain is like­ly to remain for a while, with schools and offices closed. All the HAMs are kept on alert by gov­ern­ment and local bod­ies should their com­mu­ni­ca­tions be needed.

– Jim Lin­ton VK3PC, Chair­man IARU Region 3 Dis­as­ter Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Com­mit­tee with Jayu S. Bhide VU2JAU Nation­al Coor­di­na­tor for Dis­as­ter Com­mu­ni­ca­tion in India