Mumbai building collapse kills 18 after heavy rains
MUMBAI: At least 18 people died Thursday when a building collapsed in India’s financial capital Mumbai following heavy rains that have wreaked havoc in many parts of South Asia.
A dozen others were pulled from the rubble of the four-story residential building, which gave way around 8:40 a.m. (0310 GMT) in the densely populated area of Bhendi Bazaar.
It was the most recent deadly housing collapse to strike the teeming metropolis — shining a spotlight on poor construction standards in the Asian country — and came after flooding in the city killed 10 people.
“Eighteen people have died. Another 12 have been admitted to hospital,” Vijay Khabale-Patil, a spokesman for Mumbai’s civic authority, told AFP.
Officials estimated that up to 40 people could have been caught up in the disaster.
Ambulances rushed the injured to the nearby J.J. Hospital in the south of the city while locals joined a 43-member National Disaster Response Force team in picking through piles of debris in a desperate hunt for survivors.
Building collapses are common in Mumbai, especially during the monsoon season from late June to September, when heavy rains lash the western Indian city, weakening poorly built structures.
Severe downpours caused flooding and chaos across Mumbai and the neighboring region of Thane on Tuesday although waters had receded by late Wednesday.
Bhendi Bazaar, a scruffy colonial-era market, is one of Mumbai’s most historic districts and officials said the collapsed building was 117 years old.
It had been marked for demolition as part of a $600 million redevelopment project that is replacing hundreds of ramshackle, decadesold low-rise buildings with around a dozen glitzy new tower blocks.
“Most of the buildings in Bhendi Bazaar are old and dilapidated. We always live in fear that they will collapse during monsoons,” 63-year-old Mohammed Shaikh told AFP.
In July, 17 people including a three-month-old baby died when a four-story building gave way in the northern suburb of Ghatkopar.
In 2013, 60 people were killed when a residential block came crashing down in one of Mumbai’s worst housing disasters.
On Thursday officials in Mumbai said the death toll from floods in and around the city were expected to rise above 10 as the waters receded.
“We are still on the lookout for more missing persons and the number may go up,” Santosh Kadam, spokesman for disaster control in Thane, told AFP.
More than 1,200 have been killed India, Nepal and Bangladesh in devastating floods this monsoon season.