In the second major building crash witnessed in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) in a week, 12 persons, including six women and a 7-year-old girl, were killed and seven others injured when a three-storey building caved in at Thane, a satellite city of Mumbai, in the early hours of Tuesday.
The 50-year-old dilapidated building “Krishna Niwas” in the B-Cabin area of downtown Naupada locality of Thane, came crashing down at 2.30 am - all within a matter of seconds, trapping under its debris at least 19 residents.
In the rescue and relief operations that began soon afterward, the structure gave way, and continued till 1.30 pm, the National Disaster Relief Force (NDRF) and Thane fire brigade extricated as many as 12 bodies from under the debris, while they rescued seven others in an injured condition.
A majority of those killed belonged to two families — Bhatts and Sawants. Anaya Amit Khot, a seven-year-old, was among those killed in the mishap. The others killed in the mishap were identified as Meera Ramchandra Bhatt (58), Rashmi Karan Mange (25), Bhakti Sawant (30), Manda Arvind Nene (70), Rachita Bhatt (22), Priya Amrut Patel (14), all women, Subhrav Bhatt (56), Arun Dattatray Sawant (62), Ramchandra Pandurang Bhat (62) Amit Sawant (40) and Mahadeo Ramachandra Barve (60), all men.
Informed official sources said that the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) had declared the dilapidated building as ‘dangerous’ for habitation some years. The owner of the building had approached a builder to undertake re-development of ‘Krishan Niwas.’
However, owing to a dispute, some of the families in the building had refused to vacate their flats. Sources said that five families were living in the building at the time of mishap.
“Even after the TMC declared the building as dangerous, five families had refused to vacate the building,” a TMC officer claimed. However, there was no official confirmation as to whether any structural audit of the dilapidated building had been done in recent years.
Tuesday’s was the second major collapse in Thane district in a week. In the earlier mishap that took place on July 28, a 43-year-old building ‘Matrukrupa,’ housing 20 families, collapsed like a proverbial pack of cards, claiming as many as 11 lives and leaving at least 10 others injured.