A call centre was established by the Thane Municipal Corporation to accept and track resolution of caller complaints about illegal buildings.
At 6:30 pm IST (13:00 UTC) on 4 April 2013, a building collapsed in the Shil Phata area[16][17] of Mumbra, a suburb of Thane in Maharashtra, India.
[20] Reuters reported the last survivor was rescued on 5 April, a woman who was "found after workers heard her voice and used camera equipment to pinpoint her location under the rubble.
[23] Workers, including the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), used bulldozers, hydraulic jacks, power saws and sledgehammers to break through the "mound of steel and concrete" and dug an additional 8 ft (2.4 m) below ground.
[5][11][20] The rescue effort was complicated by the way in which the floors were "sandwiched" in the collapse, making it difficult to find individuals in the rubble.
[15][20][nb 5] Lawful building construction in Thane district requires blueprints to be filed and approved by municipal agencies and permits obtained to connect electricity, water and sewage services.
[27] Ramesh Patil, a legislator of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) party, stated that the week before the incident he had complained the building was unfit and not legal.
[22] At a state assembly meeting, Chief Minister of Maharashtra Prithviraj Chavan assured participants that there would be a thorough investigation of the circumstances leading up to the collapse of the building.
[20][22][28] Pratap Sarnaik, Member of the Legislative Assembly, demanded an investigation into the role of R.A. Rajeev, the Thane Municipal Commissioner.
[5][15] Many people moved to the greater Mumbai area in search of jobs, and without affordable housing, thousands sleep in slums or on the streets.
[31] In February 2013, Sunil Kumar Lahoria, a Navi Mumbai developer, was killed after having lodged complaints about 600 area illegal buildings.
His son, Sandeep Kumar, said: "My father paid a very heavy price for exposing irregularities that took place with the active involvement of government officers.
[34][nb 7] According to Raju Phanse, Right to Information (RTI) activist and General Secretary of the Dharmarajya Paksha political party, Thane Municipal Corporation did not act upon the 2005 Maharashtra state resolution to identify illegal buildings.
The order called for municipalities to use remote sensing technology to identify illegal buildings by 28 February 2005 and monitor satellite images every six months.
[29] The total number of illegal structures are estimated to be about 490,000 in the Thane district according to information in the Bombay (Mumbai) High Court.
[3] This chart was created based upon the builders, police and municipal suspects' alleged roles as identified in an article by the Pune Mirror.
[37] In addition, TMC engineers Subash Rawal and Ramesh Inamdar allegedly received bribes so that they would not demolish the building.
[41] The local court on 18 May 2013 granted bail to Afroz Ansari who had supplied materials and Ramdas Burud, a driver to one of the accused officials of TMC.
[44] A formal campaign to demolish area illegal buildings began on 9 April 2013 and is expected to be conducted before the monsoon season.
The first phase of a "demolition drive" begins as 57 illegal buildings in the district (including Mumbra-Kausa area) are vacated, taken over by the Thane Municipal Council (TMC) and demolished.
[45] The Thane Municipal Corporation established a call centre to receive complaints about illegal buildings on 10 April 2013.