GHAZIPUR, India — Huddled in a stinky, airless room near the center of India’s capital, Rammurti fumed over the 17-story-high mountain of trash half a mile from her home.

The 43-year-old mother, who goes by one name, had watched the garbage in her village of Ghazipur pile higher and higher over the years. It wafted a sickening cocktail of airborne particles that infected her neighbors with tuberculosis and dengue fever, singed trees and turned the ground water a filmy yellow.

But nothing had prepared her for one afternoon last September when a tower of trash broke away from the mass during monsoon rains. It crashed into a nearby canal, which created a surge of sewage that flung motorcyclists into another canal also filled with dirty water.

By the time the police arrived, two people were dead. One of them was Rammurti’s youngest son, 19-year-old Abhishek Gautam.