Overview
- The city recorded 113 tree and branch falls in a 24-hour span after heavy monsoon downpours on Wednesday, with 40 incidents in the island city, 50 in the western suburbs and 23 in the eastern suburbs.
- High-profile collapses included a 60-year-old banyan on Breach Candy Road that fell onto a parked gas-agency vehicle and was cleared in about four hours, and a large tree in Dadar that crushed a parked car but caused no injuries.
- Civic sources and officials point to ageing stock, root deterioration from concretised tree bases and allegedly improper pruning by contractors as the main factors that made trees more vulnerable during the rains.
- The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation issued public advisories advising people not to shelter or park under trees, mobilised fire brigade and garden teams to clear roads, and said it will carry out joint inspections ordered by the Bombay High Court.
- Elected representatives and activists are demanding free municipal trimming, stronger enforcement and deconcretisation of tree bases while the BMC cites existing compensation rules and says enforcement action is under way in prior cases.