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S

ubhash Ghashing, 21, took out his

mobile phone and logged on to

play an online warfare game at

around 12.15 a.m. on July 18. While hea-

vy rainfall lashed the city, Subhash con-

tinued his virtual adventure in a ma-

keshift balcony-cum-storage space,

unaware of the real-life misadventure

that was lying in store. His approximate-

ly 150 square feet house in New Bharat

Nagar stood at the topmost residential

lane on a hillock in Chembur, Mumbai,

part of around 4,000 such houses

packed like matchboxes and spread on

the hill slope. 

The night before, his cousin sister’s

haldi ceremony (a pre-wedding ritual)

had gone on for a long time, with close

relatives visiting from diferent towns.

Inside the small room, his brother-in-

law and four-year-old niece were asleep

on a bed, while others, including his sis-

ter and parents, were on the foor. Gifts

and other items bought for the wedding

took up the remaining space.

“It was pouring. I have never seen

anything like that. Muddied water was

fowing from the top of the hills. Sud-

denly, I heard a loud noise. It felt like so-

mething had come crashing from the

top. It was soil, lots of it, with rocks,”

Subhash recalled.

Unable to take the impact, the walls

of his house broke down and he was

thrown out on the road. “There were

three other houses in line behind us. All

of it went under the slush and rocks.

That must have saved us. My family

members were injured, but I took them

out and thankfully, no one died. But

look at our house,” he said, pointing to

the destroyed room where he had lived

for 21 years.

At around 12.30 a.m., a two-decade-

old retaining wall, a structure designed

to resist the lateral pressure of soil, con-

structed by the Bhabha Atomic Re-

search Centre (BARC), almost 15 to 20

feet away from Subhash’s house, crum-

bled under the pressure from the mud-

died water fowing from the top of the

hill. In certain areas, weep holes on the

wall were clogged, leading to the ac-

cumulation of water and soil. The wall

heaved and buckled under the pressure

and collapsed in a matter of seconds.

With it, it took around seven lives.

The road to New Bharat Nagar is no

less than a short hike for a newcomer.

As one enters through the Hindustan

Petroleum gate on Mahul road in Chem-

bur, no two-wheeler can go beyond a

point, let alone a fre brigade truck or an

ambulance. A walk through the ascend-

ing, narrow lanes, dotted with small

houses on both sides and countless pi-

pelines snaking across the ground,

takes one to New Bharat Nagar, where

the recent landslide killed 19 people. All

were sleeping peacefully when tragedy

struck at midnight.

Vijay Gupta, a local political worker

with the Nationalist Congress Party

(NCP), used to live in the area till a few

years ago. He was one of the frst indivi-

duals from outside who rushed to the

spot after receiving a call from a resi-

dent. “I rushed here immediately and

called the authorities. But it took a few

hours before they reached,” said Vijay.

The District Disaster Management

Plan, 2019, for the Mumbai suburbs

charted out by the Brihanmumbai Mun-

icipal Corporation (BMC) states, “Sever-

al areas around hill slopes in Greater

Mumbai are prone to landslides. The

risk is more during the monsoon and

heavy rains. Areas around hill slopes in

Ghatkopar, Bhandup and Kurla in the

Eastern Suburbs are prone to land-

slides, resulting in increased exposure

of slopes to erosion and water infltra-

tion. Slum populations residing on

these hill slopes are at high risk.”

The plan had identifed 252 spots

spread across the Mumbai suburbs, in-

cluding Malad, Dindoshi and Jogeshwari

in the western suburbs, that are prone

to landslides. It repeatedly pointed out

that slums were vulnerable primarily