A portion of a staircase in an old, five-storeyed building in Beniapukur’s Gorachand Lane collapsed on Sunday morning, leaving an occupant injured and several trapped.
Police said Mohammad Shabir Quraishi, 42, a tenant in the building, was climbing up the stairs when the landing between the ground and the first floor and the one between the first and the second floor collapsed.
Neighbours said a concrete slab had landed on Quraishi’s feet.
“He was helped out of the debris and taken to the Calcutta National Medical College and Hospital, from where he was shifted to a private hospital,” said Daulat Abbas, a neighbour.
Quraishi, residents of the locality said, is a daily wage earner who lived in an apartment in the building with his wife and their four children.
Fire department officials used ladders to rescue those who were trapped on the upper floors. Many occupants, including women and children, were shifted to adjoining buildings from the terrace of the affected one.
Officials of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) said the building had earlier been declared “dangerous” by the civic body.
“All the residents have been taken to safety and kept in a local school,” a KMC official said. The building has 54 small apartments. The owner lives in the same building with her family, police said.
The KMC official said the owner and the occupants have been asked to immediately start repairs.
“We have demolished the parts of the building that were hanging precariously. No one on the upper floors is allowed to stay inside. Only a few families who stay on the ground floor are inside the building. The other floors have been evacuated,” the KMC official said. The police said they have received a letter from the civic body to ensure that no one, except the residents who live on the ground floor, should be allowed inside the building.
“The building had so many occupants. There could have been a disaster. Many more could have been injured,” said an officer at Beniapukur police station.