Prateek Tanmay
3 min readPuneJul 11, 2026 05:29 AM IST
Satellite imagery shows that the distance between a collapsed garbage mound — under which 8 people were still trapped till Friday evening — and the office of a waste to energy plant on which it fell, was around 16-17 metres, and not 30 metres as Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) officials had claimed.
According to a distance measurement tool on Google Maps, the distance between the top of the building and the point where the vertical section of the garbage mound begins from was around 16.76 m before the collapse.
Following incessant rains, a huge garbage mound at a Moshi landfill collapsed on the office of a three-year-old waste-to-energy plant on July 8. The plant was built and run by Antony Lara Renewable Energy Pvt Ltd for Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation. The force from the mound led to a partial collapse of the office building of the company, trapping staff inside. Nine people were rescued on the first night of rescue operations, and one person was declared dead after being pulled out of the rubble the next morning. Eight more were still feared stuck inside the collapsed building as rescue operations continued for over 55 hours till Friday evening.
Sanjay Kulkarni, PCMC city engineer, said on Thus=rsday that the building was constructed 30 metres away from the garbage mound following all prescribed norms. The figure has been used by officials to claim the building was built a sufficient distance away from the landfill and appropriate safety measures had been taken.
Traffic on the Mumbai–Pune Expressway’s Missing Link was disrupted after a landslide near the exit of Tunnel 2. (Express photo by Narendra Vaskar)
When asked about the satellite image showing the garbage was just 16-17 metres away, Kulkarni said he could not comment on technical aspects while rescue operations were still underway.
The tunnel portal exit on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway that faced the landslide. (Express photo by Narendra Vaskar)
All 18 who were rescued and were still trapped were employees at the waste processing facility. The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), Indian Army, Pimpri Chinchwad Fire Department, PMRDA Fire Brigade, and police administration were jointly conducting rescue operations. The partially-destroyed building is at risk of a complete collapse, which could likely impede rescue operations.
