Stampede Adds To Monsoon Tragedy

Crowd Panics At False Rumor; Overall Death Toll Rises To Near 700

(AP)  "It was terrible to pull out little babies from under boulders and mud," said firefighter S. Shinde. "The very young and the old just didn't make it."

In Bombay, most victims drowned, were crushed by falling walls, or were electrocuted by stepping on exposed wires.

Residents responded to the devastation by opening their homes and distributing food to motorists stuck in traffic and people wading through knee-deep water.

"They were just angels. Women and children were giving food, biscuits to people on the road and even assuring us that it was home-cooked," said G. Sawant, a manager at a private infrastructure company.

The rain began Tuesday, when the cosmopolitan city that is home to India's financial and movie industries was hit by up to 37 inches in some areas, the highest recorded one-day total. Much of it came over a few evening hours Tuesday, transforming roads into rivers. The rains trailed off by Thursday, leaving an overcast sky.

India's previous heaviest rainfall, recorded in the northeastern town of Cherrapunji on July 12, 1910, was 33 inches, according to the Indian Meteorological Department.

In one shantytown north of Bombay this week, relief workers and survivors searched the ruins of makeshift homes crushed when a water-soaked hill collapsed on top them. While the complete toll from the landslide in the Saki Naka neighborhood was unclear, at least 110 people were killed, and more than 45 others were missing and presumed dead.