INDORE: A three-storey house collapsed in Indore's Ranipura area on Monday night following rains, killing two persons and injuring 12 others, officials said. Four are stated to be critical and have been admitted into the intensive care unit (ICU) of M Y Hospital.
Indore district collector Shivam Verma confirmed the two deaths and said that 12 persons were rescued following a six-hour-long rescue operation.
The deceased have been identified as Fahimuddin (40) and Alifa (20). The injured include four women and three kids aged between three months and seven years.
Dean of the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Medical College, Dr Arvind Ghanghoria, told PTI that Alifa (20), who was trapped under the debris of the collapsed building, was brought to the Maharaja Yeshwant Rao Hospital, where doctors declared her dead.
Members of three families living in the decade-old building located in Koshti Mohalla-Daulatganj were among the affected.
One of the neighbours Mohd Salim Qureshi suspected that the building collapsed due to continued water logging of the basement following prolonged rains this season. The building had three shops and godowns on the ground floor.
Some other residents of the area claimed that the building seemed to have bent on Monday late evening and collapsed towards the front at around 9.20 pm. “Had it crumbled like ninepins in a straight manner, the casualty might have been more,” local residents claimed.
The rescue operations which started at around 9.30 pm and ended at around 3.30 am helped in the timely rescue of 12 persons, all belonging to an extended family of the minority community.
“From the information with us now, 22 persons lived in the building. Out of them eight were not present in the building at the time of mishap, as they had gone to city’s Khajrana locality. Our first priority was to save lives in which we succeeded by saving 12 lives. In the coming days, a detailed probe will be carried out to ascertain why the building collapsed,” the collector said.
Mayor Pushyamitra Bhargava said that a portion of the collapsed building fell on a neighbouring structure. Preliminary information suggests the building was eight to 10 years old.
This is the second major mishap in Indore within a week. Earlier on September 15, an uncontrolled and speeding truck driven by a fully drunk driver had knocked several vehicles and people in western Indore’s Airport Road-Bada Ganpati Road’s no heavy vehicle zone, killing at least three men and wounding 12 others.
(With inputs from PTI)