How Bubonic Plague Reshaped The Streets Of Mumbai

On a leafy uphill road in Mumbai's Bandra suburb, a fire burns at a Catholic shrine. Garlands adorn a cross and idols of saints below it as pedestrians walk by wearing masks. A nondescript sign at the back of the shrine tells visitors that the cross was erected in 1897 when the city was battling another pandemic.

Deserted roads, a migrant workers' exodus, fears of the disease spreading in congested slums — the scenes that have played out in India's financial capital over the past year with COVID-19 bear a striking resemblance to what life was like here when the bubonic plague hit the city (then known as Bombay) more than a century ago.

The disease was characterized by fever and swelling of the lymph nodes, and was caused by a bacterium that spread via rats carrying infected fleas. The first case was reported in Bombay in 1896. Over the next few decades, the plague killed millions in British India, most of them poor people who lived and worked in cramped surroundings.