At least five people were injured after an old factory building behind the Nishan hotel in the Panjrapole area of Bhiwandi fell on Tuesday morning. The Bhiwandi-Nizampur Municipal Corporation (BNMC) has earlier declared the 50-year-old building a dangerous structure and also disconnected its water and electricity.
The incidents of dangerous buildings collapse are not new in the Bhiwandi area and many innocent citizens have lost their lives residing in such buildings. The incident opens the truth about the lackadaisical attitude of the BNMC authorities.
The officials from the BNMC civic body informed, "A property number 224 is a fifty-year-old basement plus one-storey factory building at Panjrapole in Nizampura area in Bhiwandi city. The civic body has declared the building dangerous and cut off its electricity and water supply. The dilapidated old construction building collapsed at around seven in the morning. On getting information about this incident, emergency teams including two rescue vehicles, two fire engines and an ambulance were dispatched from the Municipal Fire Brigade."
The injured persons have been identified as Nizamuddin Sheikh (20), Sartaj Ashfaq Sheikh (26), Shakeel Mehruddin Sheikh (25), Masoor Nazimuddin Sheikh (30) and Jahangir Alam Sheikh (32) were injured in the incident.
The BNMC fire brigade personnel removed the debris and immediately admitted all the injured to Indira Gandhi Memorial (IGM) Hospital in Bhiwandi for treatment.
The teams led by disaster management chief Faisal Tatli, fire department chief Rajesh Pawar, and assistant commissioner Sudam Jadhav, in charge of Ward Committee No. 5, immediately started lifting the debris after the accident and carried out relief work till 9 am and cleared the area.
Ajay Yadav, a resident of the Panjrapole area informed, "The problem of buildings collapsing in Bhiwandi city is not new. During every monsoon, such incidents take place which shows that the BNMC authorities are just closing their eyes to such big issues which can take the lives of many people. Today, the citizens are living in these dangerous buildings holding their lives in tough situations."
"Earlier BNMC had announced 894 buildings as dangerous this year, including 346 in C-1, 332 in C-2A, 191 in C-2B and 25 in C-3, but no action has been initiated to accommodate those residents in some safer accommodation," he added.
The fire officials involved in the rescue operation said, "A basement plus one-storey factory structure collapsed behind the Nishan Hotel in the Panjrapole area of Bhiwandi on Tuesday morning. All the five people who were stuck inside were pulled out safely and they were admitted to IGM hospital for their injuries. Four people after treatment were discharged while the one who received serious injury is being admitted to Siraj hospital in Bhiwandi for further treatment."
