Banyan tree collapses on house, 1 dead

Late monsoons in Mumbai have already claimed nine lives, including a 22-year-old migrant worker who died when a banyan tree collapsed on his house.

Mumbai: Monsoons arrived late this year, but in six days it has claimed nine lives. Rehman Khan, 22, a migrant worker from Uttar Pradesh, died in the early hours of Thursday after a 50-year-old banyan tree collapsed on a house he shared with eight others. The house was part of an informal settlement inside a private mill compound in Byculla.

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Officials from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) received a call about the incident around 2:30am. “We rushed to the spot, which is a private land, and managed to rescue every one in around one-and-half hours. Two were taken to JJ hospital where one died. The other had suffered minor injuries,” said Ajaykumar Yadav, assistant commissioner of E ward. Three people residing in the house were unharmed, while four others managed to extricate themselves from the debris and two required the assistance of fire brigade officers.

While Khan was declared brought dead at around 5am, 20-year-old Rizvan Khan was admitted to the hospital, where he was treated. Doctors said he had pain in the pelvic region and decreased movement in right knee, but no fractures. He was discharged after around 6am.

Dildar Khan, cousin of the deceased, said, “I was not present when the incident happened, but rushed back when I heard the news. Rehman came to Mumbai just one-and-half months ago.”

Saddam, the deceased’s neighbour, said, “He used to work as a loader in a poultry van. Today he was supposed to go for work, but this incident happened at night. There were no strong winds or rain when the tree collapsed, hence we do not know how this happened.”

Those removing the dead tree from the site observed that it did not have deep roots and some of it was stuck to the wall of the adjacent building.

A total of 40 tree and branches collapsed between 8am on Wednesday and 8am on Thursday, of which 21 were in the western suburbs, 11 in the eastern suburbs and island city recorded eight.

Additionally, 13 tree/ branches fall incidents – nine in western suburbs, three in island city and one in eastern suburbs – were reported between 8am to 6pm on Thursday.

GRAPHIC

HL:

Lake view

Very heavy to extremely heavy rainfall was recorded in the catchment areas of 7 lakes that supply water to Mumbai, between June 28 and 29.

The lake levels stood at 8.94% at 6 am on Thursday.

Upper Vaitarna: 122 mm

Modak Sagar: 144 mm

Tansa: 109 mm

Middle Vaitarna: 137 mm

Bhatsa: 137 mm

Vihar: 159 mm

Tulsi: 235 mm