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NEW DELHI — The death toll from the collapse of a building near Mumbai rose to at least 72 people on Saturday, two days after the disaster that underscored the prevalence of illegal and shoddy construction ending in disaster.

Rescuers worked into Saturday pulling bodies from the rubble in Thane. The Associated Press reported one women was pulled from the rubble after 36 hours.


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The high death toll was partly a reflection of how construction workers and their families often live in crude shacks at construction sites, exposing women and children to significant risks.

"Illegal construction is a major problem in the Thane area," said Sandeep Malvi, public relations officer of Thane Municipal Corporation. "Each time we demolish a building, someone builds again. We demolish it, and they build."

The price of land in many Indian cities has grown so high that contractors routinely build on public property – sometimes after bribing public officials. If enough buildings are built in a particular area and enough time passes, these makeshift settlements become politically impossible to demolish.

The collapsed building in Thane was built on protected forest land, according to Mr. Malvi. And because of the uncertainty surrounding the fate of such buildings, the quality of the construction is often very poor.

"Because these buildings come up so quickly, the quality is always very bad," Mr. Malvi said.

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Local police officials have filed murder charges against the builders, who have yet to be found.

Building collapses aren't unusual in India because of unsafe and illegal constructions tacked onto structures. In 2010, a five-story tenement collapsed in New Delhi, killing at least 64 people, mostly migrant workers.

A government study, published in 1998, noted that, "The number of unsafe buildings is increasing every day."

The problem is not a lack of construction standards, just an indifference to them, the study concluded.

But even high-quality construction projects defy contracting norms that are enforced in places like the United States. For instance, New Delhi bans large cement trucks from entering much of the city during the day. The result is that concrete for even very large homes is often made in a batch process on site, which can result in substandard buildings with significant structural flaws.

Indian cities are being flooded with migrants from rural areas for which few cities are providing any kind of planning or infrastructure. The result is vast slums and illegal construction. A recent survey found that more than 17 percent of Indian households live in slums that are considered unlivable by the Indian government. In greater Mumbai, the share of people living in such slums is 41 percent.

When such a large share of the population lives in such destitute circumstances, illegal construction — even with its inherent risks — becomes a welcome alternative for millions of people.

Sruthi Gottipati contributed reporting from Delhi and Neha Thirani from Mumbai.