Twelve persons were killed after a four-storey residential building collapsed in south Mumbai's congested Dongri area Tuesday, a Maharashtra minister said. About 40 to 50 people are feared trapped under the debris, said officials. The building, located in a bustling narrow lane in Tandel Street of the Dongri area of south Mumbai, crashed, said housing minister Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil.
Scores of locals joined in the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF)'s effort, forming a human chain to help in removing the debris brick by brick and picking up slabs of concrete to locate those buried. Meanwhile, Vinod Ghosalkar, chief of the repair board of the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA), said the building did not belong to the housing body as mentioned by a few locals and a legislator. Legislator Bhai Jagtap said residents had been complaining to MHADA to take prompt measures as the building was very old and in a dilapidated state for a long time.
TV channels showed dramatic visuals of a child, wrapped in a cloth bundle, being carried out of the debris by rescue workers. There was no word about the child's condition.
The building crashed around 11.40 am, a BMC disaster management cell official said. Some part of the building was left standing after the collapse.The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has opened a shelter at Imamwada Municipal Secondary Girls' School after the building collapse, a civic official said.
The narrow lanes posed a major challenge for rescuers to approach the accident spot. Some residents of Dongri, one of the most densely populated areas having several high-rise buildings, told PTI that had the JCB machines been able to reach the accident spot, more lives could have been saved. In the midst of the melee, rescue workers toiled hard to retrieve the bodies and help the injured, but their efforts were hampered by the congestion and the narrow, cramped lanes. Adding to the woes of rescuers, there was debris scattered everywhere and mesh of electric wires overhead, restricting their movement. Ambulances could not reach the site and had to be parked around 50 metres away. An eyewitness said the building collapse felt like a quake.
The rescuers had to make hectic efforts to remove the mangled frames of furniture, including large sofas, from the rubble at the mishap site. ”There is no open space here and honestly saying, we have never seen any open space. We have spent all of our lives in these dingy langes,” said aresident of the area. ”Thankfully, the debris being pulled out from the collapsed building's site is being dumped on a nearby road and immediately being removed from there,” he added.
Mumbaikars took to Twitter to voice their opinions, saying how there is no value for the common man's life, and are left wondering when the civic corporation will act. A few resorted to dark humour to express their views.
Politicians and netizens alike tweeted on the issue, asking why buildings are collapsing every other day in India, and why structural audits are not conducted to prevent these tragedies from happening.
Citizens in Mumbai and across the country wait for answers from the government, lest more innocents die in the rubble of negligence.
