The Press and Journal (Inverness, Highlands, and Islands)
Monsoon’s death toll rising in floods chaos
India: Wall collapses claim 31 lives
Heavy monsoon rains in western India have caused at least three walls to collapse on to huts and city shacks, killing at least 31 people and injuring dozens of others, officials said.
At least 21 people were killed and more than 60 injured when a 35ft wall demarcating an urban forest collapsed during the night in Mumbai.
Rescue teams with sniffer dogs were searching the area afterwards, and crews from the Indian navy fanned out to rescue residents of the waterlogged city, India’s financial and entertainment capital.
Ten deaths were caused by two wall collapses elsewhere in Maharashtra state.
Six migrant construction workers were killed and five injured when a wall collapsed on their tinroofed huts in Pune, a police spokesman said.
In Thane district, a school wall collapsed and fell on to huts, killing three people and injuring one, said Lakshman Pawar, a local civic official.
A 45-year-old watchman also died when a wall collapsed on him late on Monday, police said.
Mumbai police officer Ravinder Howle said two men died after they got trapped in a submerged car, raising the overall death toll in the state to 32.
The monsoon season in India brings heavy rain from June to September that causes flooding. Building collapses are common as the rain weakens the foundations of poorly built structures.
On Saturday, another wall collapse in Pune killed 16 people living in a cluster of tin-roofed huts housing migrant workers and their families.
Monday’s rain also flooded roads in Mumbai and covered train tracks. According to Skymet, a private weather forecasting agency, the rainfall was the city’s heaviest in a decade and the second highest in 44 years. Rain subsided by midday yesterday but weather officials predicted more heavy downpours in the next three days.
India’s Central Railway said in a tweet that “nature’s fury” made operating trains a “safety hazard” in some areas. Train services were running only partially yesterday after thousands of passengers were stranded overnight. Millions of passengers commute daily on the railways in Mumbai.
The city has witnessed incessant rainfall over the past few days and floodwater has entered homes. A public holiday was declared yesterday and the Maharashtra government said only emergency services would be functional.