Seven people died in rain-related incidents across Mumbai on Sunday, taking the city’s monsoon death toll to 10 in less than a week. While six people were killed after a ground-plus-three-storey chawl collapsed in Mankhurd on Sunday night, a 63-year-old man died earlier in the day after a tree branch fell on him in Kurla. An 18-year-old boy died after a tree branch fell on him in Aarey Saturday night.
According to officials, a portion of a ground-plus-three-storey chawl collapsed in Mankhurd around 8.30 pm at Chawl No. 5 in Janta Nagar, behind Hanuman Mandir, trapping several residents under the debris. One person was declared dead at the spot, while five others — four women and a man — were brought dead to Shatabdi Hospital.
Five minors were among the six people who lost their lives after a house collapsed in Mumbai’s Mankhurd area, officials said.
The deceased have been identified as Aliya (7), Muskan (14), Nihal (6), Nabiya (2), Soni (32), and Munaf (7). Of the six victims, five were minors.
One person, identified as Rehan Ali (24), sustained injuries in the incident. He is currently undergoing treatment at Rajawadi Hospital, where his condition is reported to be stable.
Teams from the Mumbai Fire Brigade, Mumbai Police, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation and ambulance services rushed to the spot and launched a rescue operation. Officials said the death toll could rise as search operations continued late into the night.
The cause of the collapse is yet to be ascertained.
Earlier in the day, a 63-year-old man who was going to attend the inauguration of his son’s shop died after a tree branch collapsed on him in Kurla’s Naupada area.
On Saturday, an 18-year-old Hasan Sayyad from Mumbai’s Saki Naka area, lost his life after a tree branch fell on him in Aarey, while he was travelling on his motorcycle. Prior to this, a 11-year-old boy died after a tree collapsed on a school bus in Chembur on June 30 while a 55-year-old fell in a open manhole in Sakinaka on July 2.
Akin to the Chembur school bus incident, the road where the tree branch fell on the 63-year-old man, identified as Yunush Kundawala, too, had been recently concretised. In the aftermath of the Chembur incident, there have been discussions on the impact that road concretisation was having on the health of Mumbai trees.
As per officials, Kundawala was a resident of Bharat Nagar Colony in Bandra (East). On Sunday morning, he arrived on bike at a shop leased by his sons that was to be inaugurated. As he was getting off, a large branch of a Saptaparni (Alstonia scholaris), commonly known as the blackboard tree, snapped and fell onto the shop, fatally injuring him.
Kundawala’s sons Burhan (26) and Mustafa (24) were standing a few feet away from the spot. CCTV footage from the area shows the road was busy with motorists and pedestrians, with several people narrowly escaping the incident. Kundawala was taken to hospital immediately by locals, where doctors declared him dead.
“I was standing at a nearby pan shop when we heard a loud thud. We rushed to the spot and saw that a huge tree branch had collapsed. I was in shock because I had passed through the same spot barely two minutes earlier,” said Irfan Babu, a local resident who witnessed the incident.
Civic officials said the preliminary inquiry indicates that the branch broke due to strong gusts of wind prevailing on Sunday morning.
“The canopy and trunk of the tree are intact. Only a branch broke off and fell directly on the victim’s head, resulting in his death on the spot. We have been carrying out pruning of trees routinely as part of the monsoon preparedness drive,” Sandhya Nandedkar, Deputy Municipal Commissioner, told The Indian Express.
Alarms ignored
The accident occurred on an internal road adjoining Lal Bahadur Shastri (LBS) Marg in Kurla. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) corporator Harish Bhandirge told The Indian Express that the road on which the tree stands was concretised in March this year. Records accessed by The Indian Express also show that Bhandirge had written two letters to the local Assistant Municipal Commissioner (AMC) seeking urgent pruning of trees in the Naupada area. The AMC Dhanaji Herlekar to whom the letter was sent incidentally is on suspension for the rain related death of a student Chembur that also falls in the same BMC ward as the Sunday accident.
The first letter was sent on May 6, while a follow-up letter was issued on July 2, two days after 11-year-old Vihaan Srivastava was killed in the Chembur tree collapse.
In his letter, Bhandirge urged the civic administration to immediately prune trees in Naupada and 15 other locations in his ward, including Milind Nagar and Gavdevi, to prevent fatal accidents.
The July 2 letter states that an earlier representation had elicited no action and warns that the civic administration, concerned officials and contractors would be responsible if any further accidents occurred due to hazardous trees.
“I have demanded that a thorough inquiry be conducted into the incident and that officers found guilty be suspended immediately,” Bhandirge told The Indian Express.
Mumbai BJP president and Andheri MLA Ameet Satam has demanded that the Assistant Commissioner of the BMC’s L Ward which covers the Kurla area should be booked for culpable homicide, holding the officer responsible for the fatal accident in Kurla West’s Naupada area, which he claimed was caused by the failure to carry out timely and proper tree pruning.
Sunday’s incident also drew criticism from Opposition leaders targeting the ruling Mahayuti alliance in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).
While Mumbai Mayor Ritu Tawde announced an ex gratia payment of ₹5 lakh for Kundawala’s family, Congress leader Ashraf Azmi questioned the amount, calling it inconsistent.
“Last week, when a 55-year-old man died after falling into a manhole, the Mayor announced an ex gratia of ₹10 lakh. Today, after another civic-related death, the compensation has been reduced to ₹5 lakh. Why this discrimination,” Azmi asked.
“The frequency of such mishaps in Mumbai underscores the need for a comprehensive compensation policy for Mumbaikars. The compensation should not come from taxpayers’ money but from the financial reserves earmarked for civic officials and the administration,” he added.
Another fatal incident
In Saturday’s incident that took place in the northern suburbs, 18-year-old Hasan Sayyad, a resident of Saki Naka, died after a tree branch fell on him while he was on a bike with a friend.
As per Aarey police, the incident took place around 3.30pm when Hasan Jahangir Sayyad, who resides in the Khairani Road area of Saki Naka, was going on a bike with his friend in the Aarey Colony area. As they reached unit No. 13, it started raining heavily and a branch of a tree fell on his head due to which he lost consciousness. His friend rushed him to the Balaji hospital where he was declared dead before arrival.
Aarey police was informed about the incident following which they carried out a panchnama of the body and also alerted family members of the deceased.
An officer said that they recorded the statement of Sayyad’s father who said that he did not suspect any foul play. Police filed an accidental death report and the body was sent to Siddharth hospital in Goregaon for postmortem, said Ravindra Patil, senior inspector of Aarey police station.
(Inputs by Mohamed Thaver)
six people were killed after a ground-plus-three-storey chawl collapsed in Mankhurd on Sunday night. (Express Photo by Ganesh Shirshakar) 
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