1. Mumbai Rains Bring Down Wall Of Upscale Wadala Building, 6 Cars Buried
A wall of an upscale residential building in Mumbai’s Wadala East area collapsed following heavy rains on Monday morning, forcing over 200 residents to vacate their flats and trapping at least six cars.
Officials at Antop Hill police station said the wall of Llyod Estate caved into the adjoining site of Dosti Reality Limited at around 5am, adding that no injuries were reported.
They said the soil under Llyod Estate had begun to loosen up and erode after Dosti Realty started its construction on the adjoining plot a year ago.
An FIR in this regard is yet to be registered, an official said.
Residents of 240 flats in C and D wings of Llyod Estate vacated the building following the incident early on Monday. They said they have been complaining of problems due to the adjoining site for over a year.
“Since May last year, around the perimeter of my building, the ground began to tilt and sink. Even the tiles in the parking lot sank. We realised the soil underneath was giving away due to the construction of Dosti Realty. So we got a structural audit done,” Nauzer Dalal, a resident and committee member of Llyod Estate said.
(Source: Hindustan Times)
2. BMC Did Not Heed Residents’ Grave Warning
The land cave-in in Wadala early Monday morning that led to the evacuation of an entire wing in multi-storeyed Lloyd’s Estate could have been prevented if the BMC had heeded residents’ warnings last year.
Mirror is in possession of two letters sent by consulting structural engineer Nitin Kamble on August 4 and October 11 to Assistant Commissioner, F-north ward, Keshav Ubale warning that construction being carried out on an adjoining plot formerly owned by Krishan Steel [but still commonly referred to as Krishan Steel plot] posed a grave danger to Lloyd’s Estate and Dosti Blossom cooperative housing societies.
Kamble’s services were engaged by residents of Lloyd’s Estate and Dosti Blossom on July 31 last year after a boundary wall collapsed at Dosti and both housing societies suspected it was caused by relentless excavation work at the Krishan Steel plot. Kamble wrote two reports – one each for Lloyd’s Estate and Dosti Blossom, with near identical observations.
In both reports, Kamble was categorical that the ongoing construction at the Krishan Steel plot had caused structural damage at the podium level at both Dosti and Lloyd’s.
(Source: Mumbai Mirror)
3. Missing Malad Teenager’s Body Found Floating In Nullah
A teenager was found dead in a nullah near his house in Malad West on Monday morning. His body was located by his family members who had been searching for him since Sunday night. The police suspect he drowned in the nullah adjoining the creek near Evershine Nagar.
The 18-year-old identified as Nagendra Nagarjun, a resident of Shivshakti building, an SRA project near Evershine Nagar, had left his house at around 4 pm on Sunday. He had told his mother that he was going to meet his friends, the police said. When Nagendra did not return in the night, his family contacted his friends but no one had a clue about his whereabouts.
On Monday morning, the locals joined the search. His body was found floating in the nullah behind Evershine Nagar. The family informed the police who fished it out.
(Source: Mumbai Mirror)
4. Monsoon Effect: Pollution Level In Mumbai Drops To All-Time Low
Heavy and incessant rainfall may have disrupted life in Mumbai, but it has also led to a huge drop in pollution, with the Air Quality Index (AQI), the pollutant-measuring indicator, recording the lowest levels ever in Mumbai on Monday.
The AQI, which measures PM2.5 pollutant - small-sized pollutants that can enter the lungs easily and cause health hazards - stood at 13, which is the lowest AQI recorded since the monitoring and forecasting of air quality began in Mumbai in June 2015.
An AQI level between 0-50 is good, 51-100 is satisfactory, 101-200 is moderate, 201-300 is poor, 301-400 is very poor, while 401 and above is severe.
Researchers from the System of Air Quality Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR), which monitors pollution levels in the city, said pollution was at an all-time low. “Continuous rain with high wind speed has not allowed emissions to accumulate. Even if the rain stops for a day, AQI will rise only as much as 50,” said Gufran Beig, project director, SAFAR. “This is the lowest pollution level on record for the city so far.”
(Source: Hindustan Times)
5. Man Held For ‘Sending Obscene Videos, E-Mails’ To Actress
The Mumbai police have arrested a 42-year-old man for allegedly sending obscene e-mails and videos to an actor who works in the Marathi film industry. The police said the accused was arrested from Kolhapur last week after he allegedly sent more than 42 obscene videos to the woman earlier this month.
The accused has been identified as Sarang Joshi from Karvir in Kolhapur. The police said Joshi sent the woman a message on her Instagram profile claiming that he was a fan. But later, the woman blocked him as the accused allegedly kept sending her lewd content on her Instagram profile.
“After blocking him, the complainant found 42 e-mails containing lewd and sexually explicit videos sent by the man. She hadn’t noticed the e-mails earlier as they went directly to her spam folder,” said an officer. After speaking to her husband, the actor, who has worked in Marathi films and television serials, approached Sahar police station and registered a case against the accused under relevant sections of the IPC and the IT Act.
(Source: Indian Express)
6. All PET Bottles Ok If Destroyed By Firms
The soft drink industry can heave a sigh of relief with the state government deciding to exempt PET bottles from the plastic ban provided that the manufacturers took the onus of destroying the containers after reducing them into plastic pellets.
The companies will face stern action from the Maharashtra Pollution Control board, if they failed to treat the bottles before discarding them.
The decision, which effectively somewhat dilutes the plastic ban barely three days after it came into force in the state, was taken at a meeting between government officials and the stakeholders at the chief minister’s war room on Thursday. Major soft drink makers were present at the meeting, sources said.
A senior government official told Mirror, “We had a meeting of the stakeholders at the chief minister’s war room on Thursday. It was decided that people can continue to use PET bottles above 500ml, but the manufacturers have to take the responsibility of destroying the bottles. For this, the source of origin of the bottles has to be mentioned on them in the form of a bar code. The companies also have to convert the bottles into plastic pellets before disposing them.”
(Source: Mumbai Mirror)
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