A five-story residential building in the congested Bhendi Bazar area of south Mumbai collapsed today, killing at least seven people and injuring 15 others, officials said. About 30 others were feared trapped.
Fire brigade officials said some nine families lived in the dilapidated building. Some media reports said it also housed a play school but children had not arrived yet when the tragedy occurred. This could not be confirmed immediately.
The building, which also had six godowns on the ground floor, crumbled at around 8:30 a.m. It’s not clear if the heavy rains that inundated Mumbai this week had weakened the building, said to be some 50 years old.
What remained was a large mound of concrete rubble and steel rods encircled by other houses including what appeared to be a tall building. Rescue workers in hard hats clambered up the mound and hammered at concrete slabs with hammers to reach underneath. Cranes and bulldozers were also deployed to scoop up the debris. Residents helped with bare hands.
At least three people were pulled out alive.
“The exact number of trapped people cannot be known immediately,” Manoj Sharma, a deputy commissioner of police, said. But fire brigade officials said about 30 others are believd to be under the rubble.
“Our priority is to pull out at the earliest those trapped under the rubble of the dilapidated building,” said Maharashtra Industries Minister Subhash Desai, who is also the guardian minister for Mumbai.
“Once the rescue work gets over, the government will conduct a probe to ascertain the factors behind the building collapse. Strict action will be taken against those found guilty,” he told reporters.
The disaster management cell of the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) received a call about the collapse at 8.40 am.
“We immediately rushed fire brigade personnel to the site to rescue the trapped people,” a senior MCGM official said.
A senior police official said seven persons, including an elderly couple, died and 13 others were injured in the incident. The injured were admitted to the J J Hospital.
Their identity is being established.
A 45-member team of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) is carrying out the rescue operation with the help of fire brigade personnel.
The injured were carried in stretchers before being transferred to white ambulances.
It is not known whether the building was on the list of dangerous structures under the MCGM limits.
The incident occurred two days after the city was pummeled by torrential rains, which may have caused damage to the building.