Haldi celebrations had just wrapped up at the Nazim house, a narrow two-storey home in the Qureishi Nagar slum adjacent to the Kurla-Trombay freight railway tracks. The whole family had arrived from Uttar Pradesh for the big day. They settled in for the night, around 15 people squeezed between the floors. But they could not sleep for long.

Around 2:15 am, they were jolted awake from their sleep. The boom of a crane 17 storeys tall was hanging over their heads. It had toppled over and crashed onto the bride’s home in Kurla.

At least 12 persons were injured, mostly with minor injuries, and four houses were damaged. The beam also broke the overhead electric (OHE) wires over the tracks, but as it is primarily a goods line, there was no impact on the railways.

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Farheen Shaikh, 19, the bride, said she and the family had to jump from the top floor to escape.

She said, “We were forced awake by a loud noise and things falling on us. To get out of the house, we had to jump from the top floor down. And then there was a lot of chaos, as everyone had come out, people were trying to get others out, and others were warning not to go near the broken OHE wires as they carry a lot of electricity.”

Four houses were damaged in the crane collapse incident.

Farheen’s soon-to-be mother-in-law was among six persons injured in the crane collapse.

At the time of the incident, the crane was being mounted to prepare for demolition work of a dilapidated building in the Bhandari Metallurgy compound behind the slums, the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) officials said.

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“While the crane was being positioned at the site, it tilted and fell towards an adjoining structure. The ground at the location was soft, which appears to have affected the stability of the crane,” said officials.

In the house next door, Raju Shankar Gaud woke up after something fell on him and saw the massive beam hanging just a few metres up from his head.

“I woke up when something fell on me, and I could see the crane’s massive beam hanging two feet in front of my face,” said Raju Shankar Gaud, 30, who was sleeping on the top floor.

Downstairs, his wife Aarti started looking for their three children.

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“I thought my children had died. Things had fallen, everything had gone pitch dark.”

“My head still hurts, and I can’t think straight,” said Shankar.

The two injured, Mustaq Qureshi, 57, and Nasreen Qureshi, 62, were taken to the private Aryan Hospital nearby, as they had head injuries and needed stitches. Neighbours rushed out and pulled the residents out of their homes.

In the morning, many with haldi-smeared hands started to remove whatever goods they could recover from their collapsed homes.