Mumbai
Heavy rains lashing India’s financial capital of Mumbai have caused the collapse of a multi-storey building, killing six people and injuring several, authorities said.
The dilapidated six-storey structure in the city’s south was home to five or six families who stayed on after residents were advised to evacuate as it was under repairs, eyewitnesses told television channels.
Two people were declared dead on Thursday evening, with disaster response officials pulling four more bodies from debris during the night, fire and police officials said.
Several people had been trapped under the debris with many more stranded in the portion left standing after the collapse, causing instability, city fire chief P.S. Rahangdale said.
“The risk of secondary collapse can’t be ruled out,” he added. Another building collapsed in the western suburb of Malad earlier, killing two, including a child, and injuring several.
Every year, heavy downpours in Mumbai bring down some rain-sodden small and large structures deemed too dangerous to live in.
Intense rains over the previous few days prompted weather officials on Thursday to upgrade to ‘red’ from ‘orange’ an alert called for the city and surrounding areas.
People and animals alike have been affected — in India’s Assam state, around 90 percent of the famous 430-square-kilometre (166-square-mile) Kaziranga National Park is under water, drowning several rhinos and wild boars.
“I can say that it’s one of the worst floods in the state and in the park in the recent times,” Assam’s Forest Minister Parimal Suklabaidya told AFP.
Rhinos were seen moving to higher ground at the World Heritage-listed reserve. Rangers had to guide back into the park two of the three tigers that swam outside the area, he added.
Kaziranga is home to the largest concentration of the world’s remaining one-horned rhinos. The homes and communities of nearly four million people in Assam have been flooded or damaged by heavy rains, with 33 people killed in the last 10 days.
In Bangladesh, authorities said conditions had improved slightly but nearly one-third of the delta nation was still under water.
At least six people have died with 1.8 million people’s districts hit by the severe downpours and overflowing rivers, Bangladesh’s disaster management ministry said.
The Brahmaputra, a mighty transborder Himalayan river system, burst its banks late Wednesday and flooded a border town and several villages. In Nepal, 67 people have died and 45 are missing after landslides and floods triggered by the rains since Sunday last week, with the army and police searching for survivors.—AFP
