The strongest rain ever recorded in India shut down the financial hub of Mumbai, snapped communication lines, closed airports and marooned thousands of people, officials said yesterday.

At least 87 people were killed in two days of crippling rains and another 130 were feared buried in landslides, according to authorities and news reports.

Troops were deployed after the sudden rains - measuring up to 94.4 centimetres in one day in suburban Mumbai, the capital of Maharashtra state, stranded tens of thousands of people.

"Most places in India don't receive this kind of rainfall in a year. This is the highest ever recorded in India's history," R.V. Sharma, director of the meteorological department in Mumbai, said.

India's Home Minister Shivraj Patil, meanwhile, told Parliament yesterday that 633 people had died in monsoon-related incidents over the past two months.

Patil said about 5.6 million people in 16,000 villages had been hit by the heavy seasonal rains that had washed away tens of thousands of homes, along with roads, railway tracks and bridges.

More than 76,000 farm animals have perished and over 700,000 hectares of crops had been destroyed by the swirling flood waters, Patil said.

At least 78 people died in Maharashtra, in weather-related incidents amid two days of heavy downpours.

At least 25 people drowned after being trapped in cars or crushed by falling walls, Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, the state's top elected official, said yesterday.

It was unclear whether those 25 were included in the total for the entire state. Early yesterday, he ordered a two-day holiday and called the army, navy and home guards to help with relief.

All India Radio reported about 150,000 people were stranded in railway stations across Mumbai. Later yesterday, some train services in suburban and downtown Mumbai resumed. The domestic and international airports in Mumbai have been shut down since Tuesday evening, and all incoming flights were being diverted to New Delhi and other airports.

State police reported new landslides in Maharashtra's Raigad, Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg, and Kolhapur areas.

(China Daily July 28, 2005)