BENGALURU: The 15-hour rescue operations by the Fire and Emergency Services, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) and Karnataka Civil Defence, comprising 130 members, led to the rescue of four people and recovering the bodies of the five deceased in the twin building collapse on Hutchins Road.
The accident occurred at 2 am on Wednesday when a four-storey under-construction building collapsed. The impact was such that it also affected a five-storey apartment next to it.
Nagenderan M, in-charge of the Quick Response Team under Civil Defence, said, “One of the residents called up the Fire and Emergency Control Room at 2.15 am saying that a building had collapsed on Hutchins Road at 2 am and that people were buried under the debris. The fire and emergency team from Banaswadi rushed to the spot and started evacuating residents. The team called the SDRF, NDRF and Civil Defence personnel for additional aid.”
He added that the NDRF had brought sniffer dogs to find the deceased under the debris. Hydraulic concrete drillers were used to demolish pillars and bolt cutters were used to cut through iron rods. “The people stuck in the debris were in very bad shape. Slabs had fallen over them. It was very difficult to even get in and rescue them. We tunnelled through the debris and got in. We managed to rescue a few people,” said Chief Fire Officer J H Ravishankar.
When they tried to drill through the pillars, the whole building started to shake. So they had to manually get rid of the debris before they could resume operations.