A few buildings that have reportedly tilted in New Town have sparked concern among residents.
The building collapse in Garden Reach that left 13 persons dead to date and the death of a woman in Birati that was caused by a portion of the rooftop wall of a neighbouring building collapsing on top of her has raised concern about the health of structures across the city.
Saptarshi Chakraborty, a resident of DB Block, said that there was a building in his neighbourhood that had tilted and was leaning dangerously.
Another such building has been spotted near Novotel in CD block.
Olympian Joydeep Karmakar, a resident of Rishi Eo View near Eco Park, had also clicked one such building behind the Novotel Hotel near the Indian Oil petrol pump in Action Area IC and posted the picture on social media.
The New Town authorities too will survey these buildings that are tilted, a senior official of the New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA) said.
“We are watching the situation closely and will send teams to check such buildings. We can only advise the residents about what can be done and the causes of a building getting tilted on its side are many that range from usage of poor quality materials to civil and structural engineering,” the official said.
According to the official, most buildings in New Town are not very old and that there is technology available that can “straighten buildings that have tilted to their side”.
City-based architect Abin Chaudhuri, who has designed Nazrul Tirtha and The Newtown School, said that buildings can often tilt if proper building techniques and practices are not followed.
“The buildings that are built using improper techniques like bad quality piling work or those that have had their foundations not properly cured— allowing a concrete foundation structure to dry out properly where it is watered regularly— can result in the upper part of the building to tilt. Apart from this, using bad quality materials or improper concrete mix can also cause this,” Chaudhuri said.
Karmakar who clicked one such building after spotting it while filling up his car in New Town said that although he had spotted the building he asked his wife who was with him in the car to see whether it was indeed leaning.
“I thought that maybe from the angle where I was the building looked to be leaning from one side. So I asked my wife who was in the passenger seat to check. She too found it to be leaning to one side ,” said Karmakar.
An NKDA official said that building rules in New Town specify that piling must be done before starting construction of the upper floors in any plot across all the three action areas of New Town.