Monsoon shuts down Bombay as landslide death toll reaches 58

BOMBAY, India - Rescue workers pulled out 58 bodies Thursday after monsoon rains set off a landslide that buried the crowded huts of a shantytown in India's largest city.

Nearly one-fourth of Bombay was under knee-deep water as rain paralyzed life in the city for the second straight day. The downpour eased late Thursday, but dark clouds threatened more misery for the city's 15 million residents.

With 50 people still feared buried by Wednesday evening's landslide, the army moved in and stepped up relief work by cordoning off the water-logged area.

''We will give any help needed to extricate the bodies and help assist survivors,'' said army Maj. A.S. Negi.

Press Trust of India news agency reported heavy rain continued to lash Maharashtra state, of which Bombay is the capital, and neighboring Gujarat state, raising the death toll in the past two days to 85.

Fire brigade officials said rescuers had difficulty reaching the site of the landslide as water cut off major roads and crippled Bombay's rail system.

Forty-six survivors of the landslide were taken to hospitals after they were freed from debris. Authorities at a nearby school distributed food and water to 100 people left homeless.

Up to 300 people lived in the slum's makeshift tin and mud huts on a hillside in eastern Bombay, most of them impoverished migrants who came to the city in search of jobs.

Rescue workers cleared debris with bulldozers and then used their bare hands to dig through the mud.

Irfan Mohammed, 29, a carpenter who lived in the shantytown, took the blame for the deaths of his three sons.

''My wife and I forced our children to stay home. We thought they would get sick playing in the rain. If we hadn't, they would have escaped,'' he said.

Mohammed survived because he stepped out to buy cigarettes. ''Everything came tumbling down,'' said Mohammed, whose wife and mother also were feared trapped under the debris.

Municipal authorities said they had warned the migrants to leave the hill. But driven by poverty, the migrants set up unstable, flimsy structures on the vacant land.

''We told people to vacate the slums, but no one listened,'' said Pravin Chira, a city council member.

Survivors said no one heeded the warning when a few boulders fell onto huts Wednesday night.

''We thought this was the usual thing that happened every monsoon. Then suddenly more boulders began to fall and I could hear people crying for help,'' said Aslam Shaikh, a plumber.

Heavy rain on Wednesday and early Thursday forced the city to shut down transport services and close schools and colleges. ''It will take two to three days to clear this,'' said A.D. Jhandwal, deputy chief fire officer.