In a city like Mumbai, space is everything. Here, people cling to crumbling, old buildings not because of nostalgia, but because of the very real fear that once they let go, there might not be a home to come back to.

At the dilapidated Mahadev building in Bhiwandi as well, residents were aware of the danger they were in but refused to vacate their homes when the BMC tried to evacuate them on Saturday. Yesterday’s front-page report in this paper states that the tenants requested the police to give them time till Sunday noon to vacate the building. But fate had other plans, and tragedy struck early on Sunday morning, when the building collapsed and claimed eight lives.