MUMBAI: Monsoon rains pounded India’s financial hub of Mumbai on Saturday, causing the partial collapse of a residential building that killed at least one person, a municipal official said. A woman died and four others were injured after sections of a four-storey building came crashing down in Grant Road, an affluent suburb in the south of the city.

“The woman who died was not a resident of the building,” a spokesperson for the city’s municipal body told AFP.

The spokesperson did not confirm whether any residents of the building were missing or had been trapped under the rubble. Images posted on social media showed rescuers clearing the rubble in the rain. Monsoon rains lash much of India from June to September and are vital to replenishing rivers and groundwater in the country but the deluge also causes widespread destruction.

Building collapses are common during this period, with old and rickety structures buckling under days of non-stop rain. In 2021, in the western state of Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is the capital, 200 people were killed by monsoon-triggered floods and landslides that also forced a quarter of a million to evacuate their homes. — AFP