Mumbai, July 30:

An Air India plane with more than 300 passengers on board skidded off the runway in India’s monsoon-lashed commercial hub of Mumbai today, an airline spokesman said, adding that all passengers were safe. Flight AI 127 from India’s southern technology showcase city of Bangalore overshot the runway at Mumbai’s international airport and got stranded in soft ground, Air India spokesman Jitender Bhargava said. “All 333 passengers on board are safe. They have been taken off the aircraft,” he said. The flight was en route to Chicago via Frankfurt, he said. Equipment to tow the Boeing 747-400 off the runway area had been pressed into service but “it would take some time to clear the runway,” he added. Bhargava attributed the incident to the unprecedented monsoon rains that have been lashing the city and the western state of Maharashtra since the beginning of this week, claiming nearly 900 lives.

Heavy rains accompanied by strong winds continued to lash the city today. Mumbai airport was closed for two days this week but flights resumed late Thursday, an airport official said.

Workers began a massive cleanup and rescuers searched for survivors under mountains of debris in western India, officials said today. Soldiers, police and rescue workers used bulldozers, cranes and their bare hands to remove boulders and rubble from areas hit by landslides as 130,000 municipal workers set about repairing pot-holed roads, clogged drains and electricity and drinking water services. RS Pardeshi of the Police Control Room in Mumbai said the bodies of 37 people were recovered from the city overnight, taking the financial hub’s death toll from the floods to 407 and that of Maharashtra state to around 920. “The total death toll in the state, including Mumbai city, is more than 900,” said S Jadhav, a senior police official with the Police Control Room. In the southern Mumbai region of Konkan, soldiers used their bare hands, spades and shovels to recover bodies and clear the debris.