(with pictures)
Thane (Maharashtra), September 15 (Language) Two men died and a woman was pulled out alive from the debris after a four-storey residential building collapsed in Dombivali area of Thane district in Maharashtra on Friday.
A civic official said the authorities had already declared the building “dilapidated and dangerous”.
He said that ‘Adinarayan Bhawan’ located in Ayre village under the jurisdiction of Kalyan Dombivali Municipal Corporation (KDMC) collapsed in the evening. There were 44 houses in the building and it was being evacuated since Thursday after some part of it collapsed.
He said that the building collapsed at around 5.40 pm on Friday evening and after some time, search and rescue teams retrieved the body of Suraj Birja Lodya (55) from the debris.
Yasin Tadvi, head of the disaster management cell of Thane Municipal Corporation, told PTI that 54-year-old Deepti Sunil Lodya was pulled out alive from the debris at around 9.15 pm and was admitted to a nearby hospital.
He said that later the body of a person named Arvind Bhatkar (70) was also taken out from the debris.
He said that the rescue operation is still going on as one more person is feared buried under the debris.
KDMC chief Bhausaheb Dangde said there were reports that two people were ill and were feared trapped under the debris, while other residents had been evacuated.
“The 50-year-old building was declared dangerous and its occupants were issued a notice asking them to vacate the building,” Dangde told reporters. Many people had evacuated the building but some had returned to the building.
He said that some part of the building was collapsing and the process of evacuating it was started on Thursday evening and this process was going on even at the time of the building collapse.
“It was an illegal building and the KDMC had already declared it dangerous,” another official said.
“According to initial reports, a woman is suspected to be buried under the debris,” he said.
He said that relief and rescue operations were carried out by firefighters and members of the local disaster management cell under the supervision of Dangde and other senior officials.
Another civic official at the spot said there were 40 buildings in the ward that were declared dangerous while there are 602 such buildings in different categories under KDMC limits.
Responding to a question on the civic body’s action on such buildings, Dangde said that right now the priority is to conduct search and rescue operations at the site.
Earlier, Tadvi said that after receiving information about the building collapse, a team of Thane Disaster Response Force was also sent to the spot.
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