In a tragedy that was simply waiting to happen, an eight-month-old baby and a nine-year-old girl died after a pipeline burst in Bandra east's Indira Nagar slum recently. The 1,450-mm diameter pipeline burst washed away the tenements of the encroachers in the vicinity of the pipeline and locals complained that several people have gone missing since.

It's an extremely unfortunate incident and people who lost their dear ones deserve sympathy. Investigations are underway to determine the cause of the accident. But, there's an urgent need to probe why shanties are built near such water pipelines in the first place. And if that's not dangerous enough, this incident has shown that many of the shanties were built on top of pipelines.