CHENNAI: A 35-year-old woman sustained critical injuries as she fell to the ground following the collapse of a newly constructed balcony on the third floor of a building at a Tamil Nadu Urban Habitat Development Board (TNUHDB) tenement in Sathya Moorthy Nagar, near Teynampet, on Friday morning.
The woman, K Lakshmi, a resident of Block 56, suffered brain haemorrhage with internal bleeding, fractures to the ribs on her right with blood accumulation, and multiple other injuries. She remains on ventilator support at a private hospital, though doctors said she has begun moving her hands and opening her eyes.
The workers engaged by a private contractor of the TNUHDB had begun rebuilding the balcony wall on July 9 as part of renovation at the 40-year-old tenement. After the completing the brickwork around 6 pm on Thursday, the workers had left the wall open to dry overnight for further plastering works.
While the TNUHDB officials said the residents were told not to use the balcony as the wall was newly built, a few residents said they were unaware of the warning as the returned home late from work. The residents also said no physical safeguard - barricade or scaffolding - had been installed around the worksite to stop anyone from leaning on it, until the accident took place.
Sources said Lakshmi went the balcony to adjust the clothes hanging on the clothesline using a stick. The CCTV footage show the wall collapsing the moment it came into slight contact with her, sending both the wall and Lakshmi to the ground.
TNUHDB officials attributed the collapse to overnight rain that prevented the masonry from drying properly. Meanwhile, the residents rejected this claim, questioning the quality of construction and materials, and arguing that a properly cured wall should not collapse from minimal contact regardless of the rain.
When TNIE visited the site, scaffolding had since been erected around the damaged balcony. Shanthi (name changed), a resident, said a similar renovation at another block last year had included external scaffolding, which prevented a woman who slipped there from being seriously hurt. “This time, there was no safety arrangement at all,” she said. TNUHDB officials acknowledged the lapse and said adequate safety measures would be ensured for the remaining renovation work.
The tenement had been proposed for full reconstruction three years ago, but the plan was shelved after residents said they could not relocate to temporary accommodation. Hence, renovation was taken up instead.
Lakshmi works as a housekeeper at Guna Complex in Teynampet and her husband, Kuppan, works as a watchman. The couple has two children — Sneha, 17, who recently joined a BCA course, and Venkatesh, 15, a Class 10 student.
“My mother is in critical condition. She is the one who takes care of our family and pays for our education. Without her, we are nothing. We have already spent lakhs on her treatment with the help of relatives. Despite the incident involving the government’s construction fault, no official or political representative has visited her so far,” Sneha said.
Teynampet police initially registered a case under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS).
The police said they would revise the sections in the FIR once the victim recovers. No criminal charge has been invoked so far, senior officials said.
(With inputs from Rajalakshmi Sampath)