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MUMBAI: At least 20 people have been killed and up to 25 are feared trapped, after a three-story residential building collapsed in India on Monday (September 21), authorities said.
The accident in the city of Bhiwandi, neighboring India’s financial capital Mumbai, occurred at around 3.40 am (5.40 am Singapore time), local authorities said.
Local residents cheered as 20 surviving National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) emergency workers, including two children aged four and seven, from the rubble.
An NDRF spokesperson told reporters that emergency workers had recovered 20 bodies from the rubble.
NDRF Director General Satya Narayan Pradhan tweeted that he expected the death toll to rise, with “more (bodies) likely under the rubble.”
TRAPPED FAMILIES
Some residents were trying to get out of the building after cracks appeared in the middle of the night when it collapsed.
“Half of the building collapsed and it is feared that between 25 and 26 families will be trapped,” Pankaj Ashiya, Bhiwandi municipal commissioner, told reporters.
It was not yet clear why the building, which had 54 apartments on three floors, collapsed.
Between 20 and 25 people are reportedly feared trapped after a building collapsed in the city of Bhiwandi, near Mumbai, on September 21, 2020 (Photo: Twitter / satyaprad1).
More than 40 emergency workers were on the scene, an official said, including a team of 30 rescuers from the NDRF.
NDRF Director General Satya Narayan Pradhan tweeted that teams armed with specialized equipment and sniffer dogs were trying to rescue 20 to 25 people reportedly trapped.
Television broadcasts of the incident showed images of a rescue dog running over the rubble of the building in Bhiwandi.
Images aired on the NDRF’s official Twitter page showed emergency workers combing concrete and brick rubble with power lines dangling overhead.
Rescuers search for survivors after a residential building collapsed in Bhiwandi in the Thane district, a suburb of Mumbai, India, on September 21, 2020 (Photo: AP / Praful Gangurde).
BUILDING REPAIRS NECESSARY
Ashiya told the Associated Press that the building was more than 30 years old and in need of repairs, which could not be carried out due to the coronavirus shutdown.
Police teams, city workers and members of the NDRF cleared debris in narrow neighborhood lanes, trying to reach people calling for help under the rubble, a Reuters witness said.
This photograph provided by the National Disaster Response Force of India (NDRF) shows NDRF personnel rescuing a survivor after a residential building collapsed at Bhiwandi in the Thane district, a suburb of Mumbai, India. on September 21, 2020 (Photo: National Disaster Response Force via AP). )
“We heard a noise and I noticed there were cracks in the floor,” resident Sharif Ansari, 35, told Reuters.
“I woke up my neighbors and my wife and we rushed everyone down.”
Ansari said he went back upstairs to alert more people and was on the first floor with a few other residents when the building collapsed.
“We jumped from there and managed to escape, but there are at least 60 other people trapped,” he said.
Building collapses are common in India, particularly during seasonal monsoon rains, due to old and often illegal buildings.
Last month, more than a dozen people were killed when a building collapsed in the industrial city of Mahad, 165 kilometers south of Mumbai.
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