Mumbai: Viket alias Rahul Yadav (27), one of the deceased in the Ghatkopar landslide tragedy, would have turned a year older on Wednesday, but it ended up being the last day of his life. Viket was among the eldest of his three siblings.His mother Chhaya, a homemaker, said, “His brothers had brought him gifts for his birthday. Late on Tuesday, he went into one of the rooms to bring in his birthday with his friends. He stepped out of the room briefly as he was unable to get internet connection inside and that was exactly when the incident took place with the large boulders coming down and crashing on him.” His younger brothers, Rohit (24) and Yogesh (21), were at Rajawadi hospital making arrangements for their brother’s funeral amid a stream of tears.“I can’t believe my brother is no more. We had plans to celebrate his birthday and today we are coming together for something we would have never expected,” said Rohit. His cousin, Shubam Bansode, said Rahul’s father had passed away when they were children and since then their mother had raised them. Rahul did odd jobs to financially support his mother.Residents of Ashok Nagar said the locality is more than five decades old and has witnessed landslides in the past as well. However, Wednesday’s incident was the first time that the area had seen a tragedy of such magnitude, leaving residents shaken and raising fresh concerns over the safety of families living along the vulnerable hillside.Adam Shaikh, a resident, said locals had been demanding a protective wall around the hillock as rocks frequently fell from it. “We had been telling the authorities to erect a wall around the hillock as pieces of rock keep falling. A tree had grown on the rocks and when it fell, it brought down a huge portion of the rocks, which appears to have triggered Wednesday’s accident,” he said.BMC has made arrangements for temporary accommodation of affected residents at the municipal Hindi School in Kajupada and Mohili School on Andheri-Ghatkopar Link Road. Additional municipal commissioner Avinash Dhakane said that it was impossible to take any kind of machinery into the disaster site and therefore all operations, whether rescue or clearing the huge debris, had to be done manually.
