Mumbai: As the island city reeled under an intense rain spell on Monday, familiar flooding hotspots, like King’s Circle and Hindmata, resurfaced, even as new ones emerged at Hutatma Chowk and Breach Candy. The heavy downpour also coincided with a high tide at 11.24am, leading to waterlogging across the city. BMC’s decision to cut back the number of dewatering pumps from 482 to 417 — citing improvements in stormwater infrastructure — may have backfired as several flood-prone areas, especially in south Mumbai like Masjid Bunder, CSMT premises, and Crawford Market, got waterlogged. Even BMC’s monsoon readiness claims fell short as silt cleared from drains flowed onto the streets, and unfinished concrete roadwork added to the chaos. In several locations, including Dadar’s vegetable market, choked drains had to be manually cleaned by civic workers. In its defence, BMC stated: “Over 6,000 personnel were working on the ground. A total of 417 dewatering pumps have been deployed at known flood-prone spots across Mumbai…Operators have been stationed to ensure the pumps remain functional.”At King’s Circle, only four of six dewatering pumps were operational during the peak downpour, while the much-publicised underground tanks at Hindmata — built to drain out rainwater — failed to kick in. A BMC official admitted, “The pumps weren’t even connected to the underground tanks, which led to massive rainwater accumulation.”A senior civic official, however, said that the decision to reduce the number of dewatering pumps wasn’t the reason. “The number of pumps isn’t sacrosanct. We can deploy more if needed. He told TOI, “IMD’s red alert came too late — by then, parts of the city were already submerged. In such conditions, it’s not feasible to start pumps. If we were alerted earlier by the weather bureau, the response could have been marginally better.“BMC’s monsoon readiness was called into question by delays in pre-monsoon desilting works. According to its public dashboard — https://swd.mcgm.gov.in — 71% of the desilting of nullahs was completed as of May 26, the day monsoon officially arrived in Mumbai. However, officials said 82% of the work has been completed.Ongoing road concretisation works are also yet to be wrapped up. While the much-touted Mumbai Coastal Road escaped waterlogging, parts of south Mumbai like Hutatma Chowk and Breach Candy — not historically flood-prone — were inundated. A Breach Candy resident said, “The area near the old US consulate never used to flood this badly. But since last Sept’s heavy rains, things have changed. Even today, the drains failed to discharge rainwater into the sea through the outfalls. We were told that once the coastal road team completed the outfall system, the main road would no longer flood — but that hasn’t been the case Earlier, only a few pockets in Breach Candy would see some waterlogging. Today, the entire stretch was submerged.”