Mumbai, May 9: In a tragic incident, a man was killed after a heap of garbage from a hill fell on the slums below in Kurla area of Mumbai on Wednesday. According to a report by TOI, while one person lost his life while one other was injured after the heap fell on their dwelling in the Qureshi Nagar slum in Kurla East area. The victim has been identified as Abdul Rashid Qureshi. The 48-year-old man was declared brought dead by the hospital authorities. The report says that a 65-year-old woman Rahemadi was recovering in hospital.

According to reports, when the Municipal officials were contacted, they said slum-dwellers dumped garbage haphazardly on the hill slope. The officials added saying that the congested slums made it impossible to take their machinery near the hill to clear the garbage.

Municipal officials said the garbage heap broke through the victim’s roof. The report further states that the victims were buried under the garbage. As soon as the incident was reported, Police rushed to the spot to ascertain the cause of the incident. Reports inform that the bodies of the deceased were extracted from the heap of garbage by the locals, following which they took them to the nearby hospital.

The East Delhi area is famous for being home to the largest garbage dump in the city. The Ghazipur garbage dump is a giant pile of garbage that has been growing at such a speed that it is competing with the height of Qutub Minar which the tallest minaret of India. According to reports, an study of Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science & Technology, Environment and Forests had in September 2018, said that the height of Ghazipur landfill site has reached as high as 65 metres which is just eight metres less than the height of the national monument Qutub Minar.

In October 2018, the garbage dumping ground at Mulund in suburban Mumbai was permanently shut after it got filled to its maximum capacity, a civic official said. Over 7,000 metric tonne waste being generated everyday in the city will now be dumped at the landfills in Deonar and Kanjurmarg areas, he said.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on May 09, 2019 10:33 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).