At least thirteen people have died and dozens feared trapped, when a five-storey residential block collapsed in Mumbai at daybreak, in the latest building disaster to hit India’s financial capital.
Rescue workers scrambled to find survivors amid the debris of the flattened block, owned by the city’s civic administrative body, the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, in the east of the city.
“My son is inside. I’m waiting for them to get him out,” said distraught 62-year-old retiree Mithi Solakani as she waited with the crowds hoping for news of their neighbours and relatives.
Several diggers were pressed into action to lift some of the larger slabs of concrete, allowing teams of rescuers to begin the task of taking out bodies and searching for survivors.
One woman was removed covered in dark red patterned cloth and carried to a waiting ambulance on a stretcher. Crowds of women waiting nearby could be heard sobbing.
“There are three deaths and 11 have been rescued up to 12 noon,” said Vijay Khabale-Patil, the corporation’s spokesman.
A list collated by corporation officials at the scene later showed 27 had been rescued with injuries and taken to a nearby hospital.
Local politician Bhai Jagtap said 22 families lived in the destroyed block.
“The rest of the people are down below, calling people from inside. Rescuers are doing their level best to save lives,” he said after visiting the scene.
The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) also said that 22 families were housed there.
Local commander Alok Avasthy, from the NDMA’s response force, initially said up to 70 people were feared trapped.
The Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai said the building was for employees of the local administration and their families who had been asked to leave earlier this year.
“The building was around 30 years old. We had issued a notice to them in April, to vacate the building, but they did not act,” Khabale-Patil said.
Five other blocks have collapsed in or close to Mumbai in recent months, including one in April that killed 74 people.
Two builders and seven others were arrested in connection with the April collapse of the unauthorised and partly finished building.
Three buildings collapsed in Mumbai in June alone, killing 25 people between them.
The incidents have highlighted poor quality construction and violations of the building code, caused by massive demand for housing and endemic corruption.
The high cost of property in Mumbai and surrounding areas pushes many low-paid families, especially newly arrived migrants from other parts of India, into often illegal and poorly constructed homes.
India’s urban housing shortage was estimated at nearly 19 million households in 2012, and in Mumbai the situation is so dire that more than half of the city’s residents live in slums.
