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Mumbai floods: 3,000 LPG cylinders washed away, residents warned against retrieving them
There is no guarantee the cylinders washed into the river contain gas or not. Picking them up, opening them or taking them home out of curiosity or for use could be dangerous
- PUBLISHED: Thu 9 Jul 2026, 4:08 PM
About 3,000 cylinders of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) — some filled and others empty — were washed away by floodwaters from the bottling plant of a state-owned company at Patalganga, about 60km from Mumbai.
Several residents of the area were seen trying to pull out the cylinders from the river, but Kishan Jawale, the collector of Raigad district, warned people not to pick up the cylinders flowing furiously in the river.
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"There is no guarantee that the cylinders washed into the river contain gas or not. Picking them up, opening them or taking them home out of curiosity or for use could be extremely dangerous," he told reporters.
About a thousand cylinders were pulled out from the river, and efforts are on to recover the rest. He urged residents to call officials when they spot a cylinder, instead of trying to retrieve it.
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Following heavy rains in the area, the cylinders were washed from the LPG bottling plant of Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd. About three years ago, a similar incident had happened in Navsari in Gujarat, when over a hundred empty gas cylinders were washed away from a flooded godown.
The Patalganga rises near the hill station of Matheran and flows westward into a creek. But heavy rains lash the area every monsoon, resulting in the river waters causing damage.
Over the past four days, nearly 1,500 residents of a 150-year-old fishing village, Dolghar, have been stranded as the Patalganga waters have submerged it. About 60 per cent of the village has been inundated with the floodwaters. The villagers say it is annual feature during the monsoons, when the river floods the village, cutting off electricity, telecommunications and transport.
The worst sufferers are patients, women and the elderly, who are unable to visit nearby doctors. Snakes and rodents also enter their homes, and the flooded waters make life miserable.
According to district officials, this year has been no different, as the four rivers in the area (Patalganga, Savitri, Amba, and Kundalika) have crossed the danger mark.
Officials have relocated many of the residents in the villages from low-lying areas near the rivers. Raigad district, south of Mumbai, has seen 25 landslides and mudslides over the past few days following heavy rains.
