Multiple walls collapse in Mumbai monsoon rains, killing 31

MUMBAI (AP):

Heavy monsoon rains in western India caused at least four walls to collapse on to huts and city shanties, killing at least 31 people and injuring dozens of others, officials said yesterday as forecasters warned of more rain.

At least 21 people were killed and more than 60 others injured when a 10-metre (35-foot) wall demarcating an urban forest collapsed during the night in Mumbai, police officer Ravinder Howle said.

Rescue teams with sniffer dogs were searching the area afterwards, and rescuers from the Indian navy also fanned out to help and rescue residents of the waterlogged city, India’s financial and entertainment capital.

Ten deaths were caused by three wall collapses elsewhere in Maharashtra state.

Six migrant construction workers were killed and five injured when a wall collapsed on their tin-roofed huts in Pune early Tuesday, an officer in the city’s Police Control Room 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 died when a wall collapsed on him late Monday night, police said.

Howle said two men died after they were trapped in a submerged car, raising the overall death toll in the state to 33.

The monsoon season in India brings heavy rains from June to September that cause flooding and other damage. Building collapses are common as the rains weaken 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 rains 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 second-highest in 44 years.