At least 16 people were feared trapped after a building collapsed following heavy rainfall in the western Indian state of Maharashtra on Wednesday, officials said.The three-storey building in Pimpri Chinchwad, nearly 135km southeast of Mumbai, came crashing down at around 1.45pm local time, fire officials involved in the rescue operation said.The region has recorded “exceptional” rainfall since the delayed arrival of the monsoon in the country, with a popular tourist destination experiencing 1,300mm of rainfall between Sunday and Wednesday, as per the India Meteorological Department.The weather agency considers more than 200mm of rain as “extremely high”.A team of rescue and relief personnel had reached the site of the collapse, a senior fire brigade official told The Times of India. “Some people are believed to be trapped under the debris but it is too early to confirm the exact number or whether there have been any casualties,” the official added.Authorities said the collapsed building at a municipal corporation facility in the Moshi area housed a waste-to-energy plant.It wasn’t immediately clear how many people were present when the building collapsed but officials said 15-16 individuals were believed to be under the rubble. No casualties had been reported so far.Waves crash against the seafront during monsoon rains in Mumbai (AFP/Getty)Vijay Suryawanshi, commissioner of the municipal corporation, told the Hindustan Times newspaper that preliminary information suggested that a mound of waste had collapsed on the building.“The administrative building was situated next to a mountain-like pile of legacy waste. Prima facie, it appears that due to heavy rains, the waste mound became loose and collapsed on top of the building,” he said.“Heavy rainfall over the past two days caused the legacy waste to become unstable and slide onto the administrative building.”The ongoing spell of rain is caused by a depression over central India, which is expected to move slowly west-northwest across Madhya Pradesh and adjoining southwestern Uttar Pradesh before weakening further by Thursday, according to the weather agency.India relies on the monsoon for about 70 per cent of its annual rainfall, which sustains agriculture for hundreds of millions, but the rains increasingly arrive in concentrated, destructive bursts rather than steady seasonal showers. Experts point to the climate crisis as a key reason.