Accompanied by Ministers Aslam Sheikh and Aditya Thackeray, Mayor Kishori Pednekar and Municipal Commissioner I.S. Chahal and other officials, the CM enquired after the health of the victims, the course of their treatment and other details with the attending medicos.

 

Thackeray also announced a compensation of Rs 500,000 to kin of each of the deceased 11 persons, mostly minors, who perished in the house collapse - the first major monsoon-related tragedy in Mumbai this year.

 

He added that the government would bear the entire treatment cost of the injured persons.

 

Bharatiya Janata Party's Leader of Opposition (Council) Pravin Darekar visited the crash site and slammed the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) for laxity in the matter.

 

"The local MP Gopal Shetty had warned in writing to the BMC highlighting the dangers of many of these illegal multi-storied tenements, which posed a huge risk in monsoon. But nothing was done about it," Darekar said.

 

Around 11.30 p.m. on Wednesday, a ground-plus-two storied house crashed and fell on an adjoining tenement in the New Collector's Colony at Malvani, Malad west as the city was clobbered with heavy rains.

 

The tragedy has claimed 11 victims so far, including 9 members of a family with 3 adults. The victims include 8 minors of which one was an 18-month-old female toddler and the oldest 15-year-old boy.

 

Officials claimed that in many slum pockets across the city, local residents construct multi-storied tenements without authorization, some as tall as four or five floors, in places like Bandra, Dharavi, Jogeshwari, Malad, Dahisar and other slums, and ignore demolition notices of the BMC.