As the novel coronavirus makes its way through India, one of the biggest slums in the world has recorded it’s first death.

India’s lockdown has been nothing short of a disaster. Announced a mere four hours before it came into effect, a mass exodus of migrant workers ensued, with many in the country left stranded with no place to go. As it stands, the country’s total number of positive cases is 3,588 with 99 deaths, but experts are concerned that that number is about to get a lot higher.

Dharavi slum, which happens to be one of Asia’s biggest slums, has just recorded its first coronavirus related death. The victim, a 56-year old man with no history of travel, died hours just after testing positive for coronavirus while being transferred to a local hospital. Several members of his family have already been tested and placed under home quarantine.

While this may be the first death, there are already two other positive cases in the area; a 52-year-old Municipal Corporation (BMC) sanitisation worker and a 35-year-old doctor who practises near the slum. With the Dharavi slum being so densely populated, public health experts say that an outbreak there would be extremely difficult to contain.

There are an estimated 700,000 to 1 million people live crammed in Dharavi – a roughly five-square-kilometre maze of narrow lanes, ramshackle buildings, shanties and open sewers. The population density of the area stands at 280,000 people per square kilometre. With little sanitation or running water and thousands of people living so close together, social distancing is quite literally impossible.

As the country continues to try and track down all of the estimated 2,000 people who attended a Tabligh gathering in New Delhi two weeks ago, the number of positive cases is rising rapidly. Doctors are warning of a large-scale community transmission and advised the public abide by the 21-day national lockdown.