A 13-year-old girl lost her life and five others were rescued after a portion of a nearly four-decade-old residential building collapsed in Mumbra, Thane district, on Monday evening, July 27.
The incident occurred at Faiyaz Apartment, a ground-plus-four-storey building located in Amrut Nagar near Janta Bakery on Mumbra Dargah Road. According to the Thane Municipal Corporation's (TMC) Regional Disaster Management Cell (RDMC), the second-floor balcony slab collapsed onto the first-floor balcony at around 7:15 pm, trapping six residents beneath the debris.
Emergency response teams from the Thane Fire Brigade, RDMC, Thane Disaster Response Force (TDRF), Mumbra Police, Public Works Department (PWD), encroachment department, and the power utility rushed to the site and launched a rescue operation. All six trapped residents were pulled out safely.
Among them was 13-year-old Asma Kader Sheikh, a resident of Flat No. 102, who suffered critical injuries. She was taken to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Hospital in Kalwa, where doctors declared her dead. The remaining five rescued residents escaped without serious injuries.
Officials said the building, which is around 37 to 38 years old, had been classified as a C2B structure, indicating that it required structural repairs. The apartment complex has 30 residential units, with approximately 15 to 20 currently occupied.
As a precautionary measure, civic authorities evacuated the entire building following the collapse. Around 70 to 80 residents have been temporarily relocated to Thane Municipal Corporation Schools No. 78 and 123 while engineers assess the structural stability of the building and determine whether it can be repaired or will need to be demolished.
Yasin M. Tadvi, Chief of the RDMC, said the evacuation was carried out to ensure residents' safety until a detailed inspection is completed.
Senior civic officials, including Deputy Mayor Krishna Patil, Opposition Leader Ashraf Shanu Pathan, and Deputy Municipal Commissioner Deepak Jhinjhad, visited the site to oversee rescue efforts and review the situation.
Authorities have launched an investigation to determine the exact cause of the collapse.
Shaikh’s death is the fifth monsoon-related fatality reported in Thane district in the past month, despite deputy chief minister Eknath Shinde directing authorities to ensure zero deaths from rain-related incidents.
In a separate incident on Saturday, a portion of an illegal sixth-floor structure at Lokhandwala Building, a MHADA cessed property in Masjid Bunder, Mumbai, collapsed onto the fifth floor, injuring one person.
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said the incident occurred around 12:34 pm while six occupants were inside the building. Rescue teams responded promptly and safely evacuated those trapped. Officials are also investigating the cause of that collapse.