Yesterday, after three long days, a search and rescue operation in Mumbai, India, was called off after a residential building had collapsed. Thirty-three people were rescued, still alive, but injured, while the death toll reached sixty before all missing peoples were accounted for. Depending on the severity of some injuries, the death toll may rise depending on whether or not some people are able to heal.
Incidents such as this are becoming increasingly common in India. According to a BBC article, upwards of 100 people in Mumbai alone died due to building collapses between April and June alone.
According to an Aljazeera article, in 2012 alone 2,651 people were killed across the country due to building collapses.
The amount of shoddy buildings in Mumbai, and across India, is due to the extremely large population battling for limited living spaces. The population of India, according to the World Bank is over 1.2 billion. It is the world's most populated country, but no where close to the largest in terms of geographical size. As a result, people are literally squished together in residential areas, with a large majority being in ghettos.
Many buildings, such as the one that collapsed on Friday morning, are not built up to government standards. Because there are so many people vying for places to live, many buildings are put up quickly and do not pass certain inspections; families rush in and no questions are asked.
The building in question was said to have collapsed because of unauthorized renovations being conducted on a lower level, which went terribly wrong. However, an argument is being made that the building needed repairs that weren't being conducted legally. Either way, building codes were not followed, and the events that followed were extremely terrible.
Many groups throughout India have started to fight against building codes -- they want to ensure that homes are safe to live in, and rightfully so. However, with a teeming population in such small boundaries, the reality is quickly-built, multi-story homes. Apartment complexes have to be higher than ever in order to accommodate the millions of families, but strong bases are not commonly found. This is also contributing to more and more families moving into slums.
The housing crisis in India has no simple solution. There are simply far too many people to properly house, which is a very sad and harsh reality. Different development agencies should try to push for more low-income housing projects, although the logistics would most definitely prove to be extremely difficult. Still, efforts need to be made in order to ensure that people's lives aren't in danger because of poor, illegally built homes.
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