Mumbai: A decrepit building about 100 years old collapsed Tuesday in south Mumbai’s congested Dongri locality, killing at least 11 people and trapping more than 40 people under the debris, once again exposing the creaking infrastructure of India’s largest city.
The four-storey residential building, in a maze of byzantine lanes and houses clustered closely together, came down shortly before noon, civic officials said. The National Disaster Response Force said six men, four women and a child were killed while eight were injured.
Officials of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had put the death toll at four and the number of injured at nine. Maharashtra Housing Minister Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil earlier said 12 to 13 people were killed, citing preliminary information.
As night fell on the city, hundreds of people continued the job of rescuing people from under the rubble of the Kesarbai building, which housed an eatery on the ground floor and was located in a bustling lane off Tandel Street.
The difficult access to the site prevented ambulances and earth movers from being deployed, and rescue workers, including residents, used bare hands to remove concrete chunks, door frames and household items. Ambulances had to be parked some 50 metres away.
Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said the building was around 100 years old. It was not in the list of dilapidated buildings and was given to a developer for redevelopment. Between 10 and 15 families lived in the building, he said.
Fire brigade, Mumbai Police and civic officials rushed to the site but the constricted lanes made it difficult to access the area, reduced to a mass of rubble, twisted concrete and broken wires.
Scores of locals joined in the efforts, forming a human chain to help in removing the debris brick by brick and picking up slabs of concrete to locate those buried in the predominantly Muslim area.
In a statement, she said that the main dilapidated structure, Kesarbai Building 25/C was completely evacuated by the MHADA last year and the building which collapsed on Tuesday “was the illegal rear portion of this building which is not within the purview of the Mumbai Building Repair & Reconstruction Board”.
Earlier in the day, MBRRB Chairman Vinod Ghosalkar had said that the dilapidated structure, believed to be over 80 years old, had been handed over for redevelopment to B.S.B. Developers, which has not yet started the work.
“This is a serious matter and we shall investigate why the redevelopment work was not initiated, what caused the delays and take appropriate action against those responsible,” Ghosalkar told IANS.
Among those rescued from the debris include a woman, two men and a child, who are being treated at various hospitals.
As a precautionary measure, the police evacuated all residents of an adjoining building and shifted them to a nearby school to facilitate the relief works. However, narrow approach roads, huge crowds and thickly populated areas, besides continuous VVIP movements to the site, affected rescue operations.
