At least five persons were killed and two others injured when a two-storey dilapidated building located near Prabhat Cinema chowk at Amravati in eastern Maharashtra collapsed on Sunday afternoon.

The building, which once housed Rajendra Lodge, had been declared as “dangerous” and served an eviction notice to the occupants by the Amravati Municipal Corporation (AMC) four years ago. Most of the occupants had vacated the place, while bag selling shops were open on the ground.

The work of pulling down the two upper damaged floors was on for the past two days, when the structure collapsed all of a sudden at 1 pm on Sunday. All the five bodies were recovered from under the debris by the evening.

“The building was eighty years’ old. The occupants had repeatedly been told by the authorities to vacate the place as it was on the verge of collapse. However, a few of the occupants had not vacated the building despite the warnings,” a local shopkeeper Jitendra Singh said.       

Tweeting about the Amravati building collapse, Maharashtra’s deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said: “The debris clearance is currently on. I am in touch with the Amravati district collector. The divisional commissioner has been directed to hold a comprehensive inquiry into the incident”.

Mourning the death of five persons in the mishap, Fadnavis said: “I share the grief of the bereaved families. An assistance of Rs 5 lakh is being given to each of the families of those killed, from the chief minister’s relief fund. The state government will bear the expenditure of the medical treatment to be given to those injured in the incident,” the deputy  chief minister said.