less than 24 hours after a building crash at Mumbra in the neighbouing Thane district claimed 10 lives, one more building collapsed at Dahisar in north Mumbai, leaving seven persons dead and an equal number of others injured.
The four-storey “Piyush” building, located on Yeshwant Tawade Marg at Dahisar (east), caved in like a proverbial pack of cards, at 6.45 am.
Of the seven persons killed in the mishap, five had been identified till the evening. The dead included an eight-year-old girl, identified as Bhagpat Mansingh lagsal.
During the day, fire brigade personnel rescued seven others from under the debris.
Of the seven injured persons, five reportedly sustained severe injuries. The injured persons are undergoing treatment at the Bhagawati Hospital at neighbouring suburb of Borivli.
Having been declared as “dangerous” two years ago, the Piyush building had been vacated. The affected residents’ move to undertake re-development work at the vacated building subsequently did not materialise as they did not receive conveyance deed from the builder concerned.
With the affected residents not in position to undertake re-development work in the absence of conveyance rights, some local vegetable vendors had illegally occupied the vacant building and were living there for the last few months.
Among those killed in Saturday’s mishap were two vegetable vendors Fauzan Shaikh and Dharmendra Harijan, both aged 22 years. later in the day, two other bodies were identified as that of Asif Shaikh ( 20) and Yadav (40).
local MP Sanjay Nirupam, who visited the mishap site, assured the affected residents that he would take up the matter with the authorities concerned and get them deemed conveyance to facilitate them to undertake the redevelopment work.
The Dahisar collapse is third monsoon-related building crash witnessed in Mumbai and surrounding areas during the last 10 days.
Earlier on June 10, 10 persons were killed when a four-storey building “Altaf Mansion” collapsed at Mahim in south-central Mumbai. On Friday, a three-storey building crashed at Mumbra in the neighbouring Thane district, leaving 10 persons dead and 14 others injured.
In a pre-monsoon survey conducted by the Brihan
mumbai Municipal Corporation, as many as 959 buildings in the metropolis were identified as “dilapidated”.
Following the Altaf Mansion collapse, Mumbai Municipal Commissioner Sitaram Kunte reviewed the situation and directed the civic officials to issue public notices to residents of all buildings which are more than 30 year old to carry out an emergency structural audit within 30 days and submit the report to the local ward office. He also ordered that eviction notices be issued to all buildings that were deemed as “extremely dangerous”.