Mumbai: Volunteers form a chain, remove the slabs with bare hands

Mumbai: Volunteers form a chain, remove the slabs with bare hands

As a precautionary measure, the police have evacuated all residents of an adjoining building and shifted them to a nearby school to facilitate the relief work.

Swapnil MishraUpdated: Wednesday, July 17, 2019, 05:52 AM IST
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Mumbai: At least ten people were killed when a four-storied residential building (Kesarbai), which had two illegal storeys, collapsed in Dongri area of south Mumbai; eight injured persons were rescued from the debris while a score were still trapped in the rubble.

As a precautionary measure, the police have evacuated all residents of an adjoining building and shifted them to a nearby school to facilitate the relief work.

As night fell, hundreds were still engaged in rescuing people from under the rubble of the ill-fated building, which housed an eatery on the ground floor; it was located in a bustling lane off Tandel Street.

Several local residents were also seen lending a helping hand and, at the same time, trying to stay out of the way of those officially tasked with bringing out those trapped.

A youngster was seen shouting out instructions through a megaphone to onlookers to clear the area so that the rescue operation could be carried out without any more impediments than the topography seemed to pose.

The difficult access to the site prevented ambulances and earth movers from being deployed, and rescue workers, including residents, used bare hands to remove concrete chunks, door frames and household items.  Ambulances had to be parked some 50 metres away. 

Scores of locals joined in the effort, forming a human chain to help in removing the debris brick by brick and picking up slabs of concrete to locate those buried in the predominantly Muslim area.

The Fire brigade, the Mumbai Police and civic officials rushed to the site but the constricted lanes made it difficult to access the area, which had been reduced to a mass of rubble, twisted concrete and broken wires.

Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has ordered a probe into the building crash and assured strict action against those found guilty. Opposition leaders like Vijay Wadettiwar, Prithviraj Chavan, Ashok Chavan, Dhananjay Munde, Majeed Memon and Nawab Malik lashed out at the government for lapses leading to the tragedy.

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