
at least 790 people, including 273 in Bombay, police said yesterday. Weather officials predicted more heavy rain for Bombay, where schools, banks and stock markets were closed and public transport was barely operating.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who yesterday toured the rain-ravaged areas in a helicopter, said he was "deeply pained by this human tragedy" and announced emergency aid totalling seven billion rupees (BD61m) for the Maharashtra state government.
The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry estimated damage in Maharashtra at 10bn rupees.
The main airport reopened in the early afternoon after being closed since Tuesday due to waterlogged runways.
Aside from allowing the resumption of commercial flights, the reopening had allowed the air force to start flying in relief materials, the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency said.
Suburban trains - the lifeline of the city - were also limping back to normal, a railway official said, but inter-city lines had yet to be restored.
Heavy casualties occurred in a remote village in Raighad district of the rain-lashed state, where at least 100 people from 20 families were feared killed by a landslide.
In the northern Bombay suburb of Saki Naka, relief workers and survivors sifted through the rubble of a shanty town crushed when a water-soaked hill collapsed on top of it. It is believed, at least 110 people were killed, and more than 45 people were missing and presumed dead.
Rescuers searched with bare hands yesterday for survivors buried under debris and rushed aid to villages cut off by record-breaking rains.
Bombay's residents responded by opening up their homes and distributing food to motorists stuck in traffic and people wading through water.
* Pope Benedict XVI sent a telegram of condolences yesterday to Indian officials following the deadly monsoon.