Anil Galgali, RTI activist

Goregaonkar’s jhopdi, like that of many in the area, is made of bamboo, tarpaulin and metal sheets. Last month, on July 18, when Mumbai was hit by torrential rainfall, many families found their houses submerged in knee-deep water.

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The water-logging problem has been compounded by the looming threat of another, more devastating landslide. “Ever since the wall collapsed, rocks and mud keep falling into our homes. This gets worse, if it rains continuously for two or three days. Our children and elderly are at greatest risk, because they cannot even run for cover immediately,” says Goregaonkar.

Housing rights activist Bilal Khan, who works with the Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan, has been petitioning with the state authorities to rehabilitate the 510-odd tenants, who live in these high-risk zones. Only earlier this week, he met Maharashtra Housing Minister Dr Jitendra Awhad. “We were assured some kind of intervention, but the CM [Uddhav Thackeray] has already ordered immediate shifting of residents living in settlements where landslides may take place. If the rehabilitation is taking time, authorities should at least temporarily move them to avert another disaster,” Khan suggests. 

Since 2013, Mumbai has witnessed more than 140 incidents of landslides. According to the BMC, there are currently 291 spots that are landslide-prone, out of which 152 are in Bhandup.

Supriya Santosh Goregaonkar, who lives in a jhopdi with her husband and two children, in Kurar village, says rocks and mud keep falling into their homes, ever since the wall collapsed

Activists and experts say that the numbers are proof that the city is a ticking time-bomb and cannot afford any further bureaucratic delays. “Between 1992 and 2020, we have lost 290 people,” says RTI activist Anil Galgali, who has been following up on government action in landslide-related cases ever since 78 people tragically lost their lives at a slum settlement in Mohili village, Khadi No. 3, Sakinaka, in the July 26, 2005 deluge. Back in 2010, an RTI query by Galgali revealed that the BMC and the Mumbai Suburban Collectorate had jointly carried out a survey of hutments and submitted their findings to the State Housing Ministry in April that year. Nothing has come of it yet, he says. “Whenever there’s a landslide, the affected people are shifted, and a retaining wall is built to prevent further incidents.” This only gives a false sense of security. “In the last 25 years, the BMC has spent approximately Rs 200 crore in building these walls. Only recently, they released a fresh tender of R50 crore for the same. Instead of spending so much money on building walls, why not rehabilitate those affected?” 

The issue of encroachments is at the heart of Mumbai’s landslide woes. Mayuresh Prabhune, secretary of the Center for Citizen Science, a Pune-based voluntary organisation, which has been scientifically studying the effects of monsoon on society and nature, says that there are two kinds of landslides currently occurring in Maharashtra. “One is natural, and the other is man-made, triggered by human interventions, including encroachments, building of roads and dams, and mining, etc.” 

Residents of Ambedkar Nagar have been sitting on dharna, for the last two weeks demanding that they be moved to nearby transit homes. Pics/Anurag Ahire

Prabhune, who has conducted a study at Malin village in the Ambegaon taluka, Pune district, where on July 30, 2014, a major landslide triggered by a burst of rainfall, killed 151 people, says, “When we examined the spot, we learnt that there was no direct relationship between the landslide and human activities in the area. The [incident] was caused by death of the soil on the hilltop and extreme rain for nearly three hours. This type of landslide is known as mudflow.” In cities like Mumbai, the risk is higher. “When you disrupt a natural slope with human intervention, you actually create a condition for a landslide. And, unfortunately a majority of the slopes in Mumbai [which have been encroached upon] fall in this category.” The CCS team has been determining the threshold values of slopes based on the amount of rainfall it receives; Prabhune says that according to their findings, lands with informal settlements have the lowest threshold.

In the slum pocket of Mohili village, Sakinaka, Andheri East, people have been living on a wing and a prayer. Local social worker Kishore Dhamal claims that no deaths have occurred due to landslides or COVID-19 in the area since the construction of a temple, which he spearheaded and completed in 2016. The slum sits against the perilous backdrop of a hillslope overrun by hutments, all teetering on the edge of a disaster. “Most of these homes have come up in the last two decades or so,” says Dhamal. “After the 26/11 incident, we thought that authorities would take up the issue seriously, and get all the residents to vacate, but it has only got worse.”
Last year, during the monsoon, the area witnessed a minor landslide when trees growing on the hill gave way, and the debris collapsed on the houses at the base. Nearly 50 hutments were damaged in the incident, but there were no casualties, says Dhamal. “A few months later, people rebuilt their jhopdis at the same spot. I don’t think it is their fault. Where will they go?” he asks.

Bilal Khan, Dr Sandeep Meshram and Mayuresh Prabhune

This monsoon season, in particular, has brought a string of bad news. On July 18, nearly 22 people were killed at New Bharat Nagar in Chembur’s Vashi Naka area, following a landslide caused by intense rainfall. Across Maharashtra as well, last month’s floods, which ravaged six districts, saw 164 people lose their lives, with many being buried or washed away in landslides. Taliye village in Raigad suffered the worst brunt of the rainfall with 37 people killed in a major landslide. As per a recent release from the office of Raigad collector Nidhi Chaudhary, 103 villages in the district continue to face the risk of landslides in the district. CM Thackeray has announced that the state government will come up with a plan to permanently relocate people living in hilly areas 
across Maharashtra.

Closer home, the BMC’s disaster management cell is coordinating with local ward offices and agencies to arrange temporary accommodation for those willing to move out of their houses. The decision was taken during a mid-monsoon review meeting held last week, and which was attended by representatives of the Central and Western Railways, Indian Navy, National Disaster Response Authority, Indian Meteorological Department, Mumbai City and Mumbai Suburban Collectorate, MMRA, MHADA, State Government Public Works Department among others.

Social worker Kishore Dhamal and other residents claim they have petitioned to the authorities to intervene, and raze the slums on the hill. The hutments in Mohili village, Sakinaka of Andheri East, sit on a perilous hill slope, all teetering on the edge of a disaster. Last year, the area witnessed a minor landslide when trees growing on the hill gave way, and the debris collapsed on the houses at the base. In the July 26, 2005 deluge, 78 lost their lives here. Pics/Satej Shinde

Mahesh Kamble, member of the State Disaster Management Authority, and the state-level monitoring committee, appointed by the Supreme Court to look after shelter for the urban homeless, says that right now, Mumbai needs at least 125 shelters, each accommodating hundred homeless people, so that 12,500 people have a roof above their head. “The concern is that we have only nine of these homes. According to the last census, we had 57,000 homeless people. The truth is that we have not created adequate shelters for the homeless,” says Kamble, who is also faculty member, School of Disaster Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences. He adds, “Mumbai is the financial capital of the country, and the maximum economic activities take place here. All its resources, including manpower, come from outside. So, obviously people are going to come from outside to work here. But, while there are jobs, we don’t offer low-cost housing facilities. Since the state has failed to provide them accommodation, they create their own, and this is usually constructed out of sight of the municipal authority, mostly in low-lying areas, marshy land and even hillslopes, to evade demolition.”

mid-day tried repeatedly to get in touch with Mahesh Narvekar, director, Disaster Management, BMC, who was unavailable for comment.

Social worker Kishore Dhamal (extreme right) and other residents claim they have petitioned to the authorities to intervene, and raze the slums on the hill

Exactly a year ago, Narvekar’s quick-thinking of closing down the stretch opposite New Era School at Peddar Road, prevented a major tragedy. The landslide had occurred at 1.30 am, just half-an-hour after the stretch was closed to traffic. Prabhune and his team have been working on a system—closely monitoring landslide-prone areas and the rainfall it’s likely to receive, based on IMD predictions—to alert authorities and their social media followers about possible landslides, at least two days ahead of time. He feels such a system could be effectively tapped into by local authorities in Mumbai as well. “Two years ago, we had alerted officials about a possible landslide at Malshej Ghat, and the warning had been accurate. If we are given data [by the BMC], we will be able to pinpoint exactly where these incidents are likely to occur and when.” On July 30, the Center for Citizen Science also launched https://citizenweather.in, which can be used to send real-time weather updates and alerts on heavy rain, thunderstorm, reports of trees or walls collapsing, and mudslides from any corner of Maharashtra. This, he says, will make all kinds of data, related to rainfall, accessible to everyone.
 
Dr Sandeep Meshram, associate professor of Geology, College of Engineering, Pune, says that the “the topography, geology and geomorphology, including slope, land use and land cover, drainage, soil properties are the main influencing factors for the occurrence of landslides”. “Rainfall and anthropogenic activities only act as triggering factors.”

Manisha Patankar-Mhaiskar, principal secretary, Department of Environment and Climate Change and Mahesh Kamble, member of the State Disaster Management Authority

One of the biggest disadvantages in Mumbai, he feels, is that a major part of the city has been built on reclaimed land, where construction has happened “abruptly 
and arbitrarily”.

Meshram says it’s important to rope in geology experts, who are well-versed with the type, structure and nature of rocks and how they are weathering, to assess the landslide-risk of a region. “A civil engineer can only identify if a slope is stable, or not,” he says.

The geologist says that the slope stability of all the dangerous hillocks of Mumbai has to be studied carefully. “Most of these hills have Deccan trap basaltic rocks, and water is it biggest enemy. These rocks have cracks, pores and fissures; when the water enters, it leads to extreme weathering, making the rocks brittle and fragile, and the result is not very different from melting of ice.” 

He alludes to environmentalist Madhav Gadgil-led Western Ghats Expert Ecology Panel (WGEEP) report that was submitted to the Union Ministry of Environment and Forest in 2011, which highlights the environmental degradation in the ghats due to cutting of trees, explaining why Mumbai’s encroached slopes should be afforested. “Trees have roots, and [when] these roots go deep and penetrate the soil, they hold the rocks together, thus preventing them from sliding. This is the same reason why the state government authorities do a lot of plantation on slopes, every year,” Meshram adds.

Afforestation is on the agenda of the Maharashtra government’s climate action plan, says Manisha Patankar-Mhaiskar, principal secretary, Department of Environment and Climate Change. “The rainfall patterns are changing, and this could be attributed to climate change. We are seeing shorter spells of heavy rain. And when you have this kind of rain on hillocks where the natural ecosystem has been interfered with due to encroachment or removal of tree cover, it creates a situation that is ripe for a probable landslide,” she says, adding, “We are identifying such vulnerable spots and hills, so that we can create a good tree cover. By itself, this measure may not be adequate enough, but it’s a good intervention. Climate action is not about one big ticket announcement; it’s about doing hundred right things that are pro-nature. Only then will be able to see the results that we had set out to achieve.”

152
Number of landslide-prone spots in Bhandup alone from total 291 in city