Inside Mumbai's dilapidated sprawl

By Monica Chadha BBC News, Mumbai

Thousands of buildings in Mumbai are officially deemed unsafe

The neighbourhood where 11 people died when their block collapsed in the middle of the night on Tuesday is a densely-populated warren of narrow streets.

The traffic moves as slowly as the pedestrians in central Mumbai's Nagpada, a largely Muslim district, and street vendors jostle for whatever little space there is.

Buildings, most of them old and dilapidated, share walls and families share homes because there is no space. Their entrances are poorly lit - if at all - and very narrow.

Most buildings have shops on the ground floor while residents live on the upper floors.

Large Muslim families are crammed into tiny single-room or two-room flats, sharing the bathroom with other families on their level.

Luck

Mohammed Bhai told the BBC how his relatives escaped the building moments before it came down.

"Fortunately my people got saved in the collapse," he said.

"They told me at around 1am, they heard a loud sound and sensing danger, immediately went over to a friend's place in the neighbouring building."

Others were not so lucky. One woman rushed to the building as soon as she heard of the incident to find her father.

But no one at the scene was able to tell her if he was dead or alive, she said, unable to hold back the tears.

The street where the building once stood has been cordoned off while the rescue operation continues.

It is no more than a big pile of concrete. Worryingly, the adjoining block has developed a huge crack.

Had the building fallen sideways or pulled any of the adjoining flats down along with it, the casualties would no-doubt have been much higher.

Unsafe

Most of the structures in Nagpada are old - some more than 70 years - and have never been renovated or strengthened.

The building that collapsed was reportedly more than a 100 years old.

Residents helped with the rescue effort

It was home to 16 families although about six more were living there illegally, a senior municipal official told the BBC.

There are 34 buildings in the area, he said, that have been deemed old, unsound and dangerous to live in.

For the city as a whole, 19,000 buildings have been categorised as "dilapidated" and requiring immediate repairs.

Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh said the government will review all these buildings and get them repaired as soon as possible.

The clearing up continued throughout Tuesday, watched by residents perched on the sloping tin roof top of an adjacent block.

Lorries began carrying away the debris once the bodies had been removed and trapped residents extricated.

It was a difficult task as the narrow streets offered little space for the massive vehicles to manoeuvre.

An ambulance team was on standby in case there were any more people or bodies among the rubble.

Police and firemen were also at hand to control the crowds and help clear the area.

Other residents in the lane helped with the relief effort by maintaining order around the area.

Some of them organised food for the fire fighters and police officers, who have been at the site since dawn.

Convenience

Despite the poor living conditions in Nagpada, most people refuse to leave. They have lived here with their families for years.

Moreover, the area is close to south Mumbai, where many of them work as well as study.

Not all of them belong to poor families that cannot afford any other accommodation.

Some of them have shops in the same locality and can easily afford a house in the far-flung suburbs in northern Mumbai.

But in a such a sprawling city where travel time can run in to hours, for some residents convenience seems to override safety concerns.