Why is Mumbai’s rail infrastructure creaking?

What happened?

In the morning rush hour of September 29, a narrow bridge — connecting Mumbai’s Elphinstone Road railway station on the Western Railway network, the Parel station on the Central Railway network, and the spanking new business centres in the vicinity — became overloaded with commuters for two reasons: one, it began raining and instead of venturing into the roofless open road, travellers stopped at the top of the bridge to wait out the rain; and two, according to the police investigating the gruesome events that followed, someone shouted, Phool gir gaya (“Flowers have fallen”), leading people to hear it as Pul gir gaya (“The bridge has fallen”).