While the city had been grumbling about the late onset of the monsoons for the past few weeks, the reaction to the season's first heavy showers quickly turned from relief to alarm yesterday, as 25 areas in the city drowned under waterlogged streets and 33 trees came crashing down, putting passersby in peril.

Right on cue, essential services collapsed trains on the central network were running 40 minutes late, while trains on the western line fared slightly better, running around 12 minutes late — and the less said about the harbour line timings the better. The roads weren't any better off than the tracks traffic had to be diverted at many spots so that waterlogged areas could be avoided. All this, with 100 mm rainfall in a day.