91-year-old felled by branch, dies in south Mumbai

Mumbai: A 91-year-old woman lost her life on Monday night after an old Ashoka tree’s branch fell on her at Walkeshwar Road, opposite Banganga in south Mumbai. The deceased, who has been identified as Leela Gokuldas Sukhee, was out on her evening walk when the incident happened.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) last year in October asked a trust, under whose premises the tree was, to trim it along with the other 10-odd trees but it had allegedly not taken any action. The tree was located inside the premises of the trust, and the branch fell from a height close to 20 feet.

 According to the civic disaster management cell, the incident took place at around 6 pm on Monday, after which the senior citizen was rushed to the St Elizabeth’s Hospital on Malabar Hill. She was then transferred to the state-run G.T. hospital at around 7:30 pm. “The woman was in a critical condition when she was brought to the hospital. She had suffered multiple fractures in her arms and there was heavy bleeding in her brain. She passed away at 10.55 pm,” said Dr. Mukund Tayade, medical superintendent at G.T. hospital.

Responding to the incident, a civic official from the ward said, “In October last year, we had permitted the Saraswat Brahman Trust, which looks after the Banganga area, to perform tree trimming. We had told them to trim the branches once in six months.” The BMC reveals that it had done an inspection of the site last year and had intimated the trust authorities to trim all the trees. The Asian Age tried contacting the manager of the trust, but he remained unavailable for a comment.