Two brothers were killed and their father severely injured when their two-storey mud house collapsed on them at a village in Bankura’s Joypur early on Friday.

Police said brothers Santosh Biswas, 56, and Bikash Biswas, 52, got trapped in the debris of the house at Supur village that came crashing down on them around 1am while they were trying to rescue their 81-year-old father Anil Charan Biswas, who can’t walk because of age-related ailments.

Residents came rushing on hearing the noise of the collapse and informed the police.

Police and fire brigade officers brought out the brothers and their aged father from under the debris after three hours and sent them to Joypur block primary health centre.

Doctors declared Santosh and Bikash dead on arrival. Their injured father was hospitalised.

Octogenarian Anil has been the former secretary of the CPM-affiliated All Bengal Teachers’ Association’s Bankura chapter and former chairman of Bankura primary school council.

Soma, Santosh’s wife, said she was shocked at the events of the day.

“I was sleeping on the first floor of our house with my daughter when we felt a tremor. My husband was sleeping on the ground floor with his father when his brother took us out of the house. The brothers again went inside the house to rescue their father when the mud house collapsed on them in front of our eyes,” said an inconsolable Soma, adding that her husband worked at a private company in Burdwan town.

She said the house was over five decades old but not dilapidated, though its condition had worsened this monsoon. “We were about to repair the house after Durga Puja but it collapsed,” she added.

Police handed over the bodies to the family after post-mortem.

A pall of gloom descended on Supur as the news of the deaths spread. A villager said the octogenarian father had not yet been told that he had lost his two sons.

“It will be too much for him to bear at his age” the villager said.

One of the brothers’ cousins who stays at a concrete house nearby said he had told “Anil uncle” to leave the mud house and stay with him, but he refused.