120 tree fall incidents this monsoon: NMMC

NAVI MUMBAI: The Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) has claimed that the tree fall incidents this monsoon have decreased by more than 76% compared to the last year.

According to the NMMC’s disaster management cell, between June and September this year, there were only 120 tree falling cases as opposed to 512 registered in the corresponding period last year.

Last year, a man died after a tree fell on him in Airoli. However, no such incident was reported this year. Only four vehicles were damaged after a tree fell on them in Vashi in July.

Jaydeep Pawar, deputy municipal commissioner of NMMC (tree authority and garden department), said that the number of tree-falling cases is less this year as there were no cyclones in the four months of monsoon.

“There

were

multiple cyclones between June and September last year and hence as many as 512 trees fell down. But there was no cyclone in the corresponding time this year. If you see, we lost 153 trees during Cyclone Tauktae this year too. But that was in May, much before the onset of monsoon.”

A survey conducted in 2017 revealed that there were 8,57,295 trees in Navi Mumbai. It also revealed that there were 1,88,000 Subabul trees in the city, the largest species found here.

Dr. V Shubhalaxmi, an environmentalist and founder of iNaturewatch Foundation, Kharghar, said, “Normally, the shallow-rooted trees such as gulmohar and rain tree fall during monsoon. When the authorities dig up the soil near such trees for different civic works around that time, their roots lose grip and their chances of falling increase. This year, we’ve observed that there was not much digging work in the jurisdiction of NMMC and that could be a reason for less tree fall cases.”