MUMBAI (Reuters) – Rescue workers pulled more than 60 people alive from the rubble of a collapsed building in an industrial town near India’s financial capital Mumbai, a senior official said on Tuesday, as rescue efforts continued.
The five storey building near a slum district in Mahad, which housed roughly 200 residents, caved in on Monday evening.
“One resident was dead and at least 30 were still trapped,” said Bharatshet Maruti Gogawale, a local lawmaker in Mahad situated about 165 km (100 miles) south of Mumbai.
The building, which comprised of 47 flats, fell almost like a pack of cards, said a police official at the disaster site.
Local residents and police combed through tin sheets, metal rods and other wreckage in a desperate search for survivors as ambulances rushed injured to nearby hospitals amid heavy monsoon rains and fears of Covid-19 infections.
The cause of the accident was not clear. But building collapses are common in India, usually due to shoddy construction, substandard materials and disregard of regulations.
Every year, heavy downpours during the June to September monsoon season bring down rain-sodden small and large structures deemed too dangerous to live in.
More than 1,200 people were killed in 1,161 building collapses across India in 2017, according to latest data from the National Crime Records Bureau.
(Reporting by Rupam Jain, Editing by Michael Perry)
