India, Sept. 1 -- That Sinking Feeling

MUMBAI: Just beyond the reach of Mumbai, the Vasai-Virar region remained, until quite recently, a picturesque idyll. It was hard to believe that a landscape of rolling fields, the occasional gaothan (village settlement), and a smattering of low-rise buildings lay only an arm's length from the hurly-burly of a mega city. Until it no longer did.

The setting up of the Vasai-Virar City Municipal Corporation (VVCMC) as recently as 2009 marked a turning point, a final admission that the urban chaos had seeped into these once-quiet townships on the northern fringes of Mumbai.

So, when unprecedented rain pounded the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) for five straight days, from August 15 to 19, Vasai-Virar...