Flight ‘chaos’ in rain-hit Mumbai
Law means no rooms
MUMBAI, Sept 20, (Agencies): Dozens of flights were diverted from Mumbai after a SpiceJet plane overshot the runway and became stuck in the mud as heavy rain lashed India’s financial capital and caused travel chaos Wednesday.
Schools and colleges also closed for the day as a precaution after severe monsoon rain late Tuesday and overnight led to fears of widespread flooding.
The storms came three weeks after ten people were killed when torrential rain deluged Mumbai, flooding homes and railway lines and shutting down the city for two days.
On Wednesday airport officials were trying to move the SpiceJet plane which skidded on landing at around 10:00 pm on Tuesday and forced the closure of the main runway.
All 183 passengers were safely evacuated from the Varanasi to Mumbai flight after it missed the runway and “skidded off into the unpaved surface” due to wet conditions, the airline said in a statement.
“The main runway is out of use due to heavy rains. Only the secondary runway is operational and it can only handle a limited number of flights,” Veena Chiplunkar, a spokeswoman for the international airport, told AFP.
Some 56 flights were diverted due to Tuesday night’s thunder and lightning storms, she added.
Meanwhile, six people were killed Wednesday in a landslide in northeast India, while heavy rain in the western city of Mumbai caused havoc after a plane skidded off the runway and became stuck in mud.
Authorities in the remote Himalayan state of Sikkim said the six died when their home was swept away by a landside following a monsoon deluge.
“Four others have been injured,” Sudhakar Rao, Sikkim deputy police chief, told AFP. (Agencies)
No rooms for migrant workers:
The collapse of a 117-year-old apartment block in a crowded neighbourhood in Mumbai last month highlighted the dismal state of affordable rental housing in Indian cities, even as tens of thousands migrate from rural areas everyday in search of jobs.
Thirty-four people including a newborn baby were killed when the six-storey building collapsed after heavy rains in a congested neighbourhood in the financial hub.
It was one of hundreds of old, decrepit buildings in the city under an archaic rent control law that has kept rents low, but led to buildings becoming dilapidated that tenants are reluctant to leave because of a lack of affordable options.
About a third of India’s 1.25 billion population lives in cities, with the numbers rising every year as tens of thousands of people leave villages to seek better economic prospects.
About a quarter of the urban population lives in informal housing, including slums because of a critical shortage of affordable housing, according to social consultancy FSG.
With little new affordable rental housing being built, millions of poor migrants are forced to live in unsafe and unsanitary conditions, in slums and other informal settlements where they may lack even basic amenities, analysts say.
“They have no choice,” said Satyanarayana Vejella, co-founder of Aarusha Homes, which operates dormitories for students and entrylevel workers in four Indian cities.
App helps end child marriage:
A mobile phone app is the latest tool for campaigners seeking to end child marriage in the eastern Indian state of Bihar, where nearly two-thirds of girls in some of its rural areas are married before the legal age of 18.
The app, Bandhan Tod, was developed by Gender Alliance — a collective of more than 270 charities in Bihar focused on gender rights — and launched this week by Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi. It is backed by the United Nations Population Fund.
India ranks among countries with the highest rates of child marriage in the world, accounting for a third of the global total of more than 700 million women, according to UNICEF, the United Nations children’s agency.
Bandhan Tod — meaning “break the binds” — includes classes on child marriage and dowries, and their ill effects. It also has an SOS button that notifies the team when activated.
“The app is a big part of our efforts to end child marriage in the state,” said Prashanti Tiwary, head of Gender Alliance.