INDIA. Mumbai: One person died and two others were grievously injured, when three houses in a row collapsed at Lokhandi Chawl in Shivaji Nagar, Dahisar (East) in North Mumbai on Thursday evening.
The deceased has been identified as a 26-year-old man Pradyumna Saroj. He was taken to the Bharat Ratna Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Municipal General Hospital(BBAH) in Kandivali West Hospital but was declared before admission. Seven to eight people were rescued by the residents who rushed to the spot soon after the mishap.
The incident took place around 6:36 pm on Thursday and was reported to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) control room around 7:45 pm, following which the fire brigade officials were deployed. According to BMC officials, the topmost floor of the house crashed and fell, severely damaging the floors beneath the structure. The ground floor was like a temporary makeshift shelter while the higher floors were well constructed. The chawls were 40 years old and were in ramshackle condition.
Assistant Municipal Commissioner Sandhya Nandedkar of R North (RN) ward told the Transcontinental Times that apart from the one person who died, two more people were seriously injured and have been admitted to the hospital. She said the building that came down was not a well-constructed house but was more like a makeshift shelter constructed with bricks. Some of the residents who were living in the building have shifted to their friend’s and relatives’ place and the BMC has made temporary arrangements for rehabilitation in a nearby hall,” she added.
Shiv Sena MLA Prakash Surve said that those living in those houses were mainly daily wage workers. The land on which these properties were erected belongs to the Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) and forest department. Whereas BJP MLA Manisha Chaudhuri squarely blamed the BMC administration for not taking action against illegal encroachments.
The open lands in Dahisar, Magathane (Borivali) and adjoining areas have become hotbeds of illegal encroachments. The building proposal department of the BMC should be held responsible for allowing such encroachments to grow,” she added.
This was the second incident of house collapse after 11 persons died when a three-story building collapsed at Malwani, Malad in North Mumbai late Wednesday night. The heavy rains which lashed Mumbai on Wednesday continued throughout the day on Thursday.
Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray visited the (BBAH) hospital earlier in the day on Thursday to inquire about the people injured in the Malwani house collapse incident and announced a compensation of Rs 5 lakh to the next of the kin and to bear the cost of medical treatment of those injured in Malwani house collapse. He was accompanied by Mumbai Mayor Kishori Pednekar and Mumbai Municipal Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal.
In the meanwhile a red alert has been sounded in Raigad district of Maharashtra, with warning of heavy to extremely rainfall till Friday, prompting the district administration to shift over 1,000 people from 20 villages to safer places. The district received an average rainfall of 58 mm in the last 24 hours, Collector Nidhi Choudhary said.
Fifteen National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) teams have been positioned in various parts of Maharashtra given the prediction of heavy rain in certain parts of the state. Four teams have been based in Ratnagiri, two each in Mumbai, Sindhudurg, Palghar, Raigad, Thane, and one in Kurla (east Mumbai suburb), NDRF director general S N Pradhan said.
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