At least six people, including five children, were killed on Sunday evening when a multi-storey residential building collapsed in the Mankhurd area of eastern Mumbai, according to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). The structure, described by local authorities as a dilapidated chawl — a form of low-cost tenement common in the city — gave way around 8:30 p.m. local time amid heavy monsoon rainfall. One woman and five young children were pronounced dead at two municipal hospitals, while a man was being treated for injuries. Rescue teams from the Mumbai Fire Brigade, police, and ambulance services continued to search the debris overnight, with a municipal councillor telling Indian media that one person remained unaccounted for.

The collapse occurred as the India Meteorological Department (IMD) recorded more than 200 millimetres of rain in 24 hours across parts of Mumbai, triggering a red alert for the city and neighbouring Thane and Raigad districts on Monday. The warning forecast further heavy to very heavy rainfall, strong winds gusting up to 80 kilometres per hour, and the risk of flash floods, landslides, and structural damage. All government, private, and municipal schools and colleges in Mumbai were ordered shut for the day, and the BMC urged residents to avoid non-essential travel and stay clear of trees, old buildings, and electric poles.

Transport networks were severely disrupted. Landslides on the Mumbai–Pune expressway forced its closure, while long-distance train services on the busy corridor were cancelled, diverted, or rescheduled after multiple slips in the Karjat–Lonavala Bhor Ghat section. Flight operations at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport were suspended for nearly an hour. Local media showed residents wading through waterlogged streets, and the city administration reported that falling trees had killed at least three people since late last month.

The intense rainfall follows the fifth-driest June in India since records began in 1901, a contrast that has sharpened concerns about the reliability of the monsoon, which supplies nearly 70 per cent of the country’s annual precipitation and underpins its nearly $4 trillion economy. While Mumbai grappled with flooding, heavy monsoon rains also triggered landslides in Rohingya refugee camps in southeastern Bangladesh, killing at least eight people, and prompted China’s Guangxi region to raise its flood-control response to the highest level after Typhoon Maysak caused a reservoir breach.

As of Monday, the provisional death toll from the Mankhurd collapse stood at six, with rescue operations ongoing. The BMC said nearly 15,000 officials and employees had been deployed across the city to monitor the situation and coordinate relief. No official cause of the building failure has been released, though authorities pointed to the combination of torrential rain and the structure’s advanced age.