BHOPAL: A four-storied tourist lodge caved in like a pack of cards, killing three labourers, including a woman and injuring three others, in Kotma town of Anuppur district in eastern Madhya Pradesh on Saturday evening.
National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) teams from Chhattisgarh’s Bhilai and Uttar Pradesh’s Varanasi, assisted by MP’s state disaster and emergency response force (SDERF) recovered the bodies of two men by Saturday night, while the woman’s body was recovered from the debris on Sunday morning.
The two deceased men have been identified as Hanuman Deen Yadav (55) and Ram Kripal Yadav (40), and the deceased woman is a Kol tribal, official sources told TNIE on Sunday.
According to Anuppur district collector Harsh Pancholi, “A sum of Rs 9 Lakh each has been sanctioned to the next of kin of each of the deceased and Rs 2.5 lakh to each injured.”
The fatal mishap occurred at around 5:30 pm on Saturday, when the four-story Agrawal Lodge, built 10-12 years ago, collapsed like a pack of cards.
A preliminary probe revealed that the four-storey tourist lodge had been constructed unsafely in a relatively small space, and that ongoing work in the adjoining plot weakened its foundation, leading to the fatal collapse.
While labourers working on the neighbouring plot narrowly escaped, those killed and injured were engaged in repair and construction work inside the lodge at the time of the incident. Fortunately, the absence of guest bookings helped keep casualties to a minimum.
“Based on the primary probe, it has been found that the lodge’s owner as well as the owner of the adjoining plot had compromised public safety with their negligence acts, owing to which a case has been registered against both, Rajiv Garg (owner of the adjoining plot) and Lallu Agrawal (lodge owner) under BNS Section 290 (negligent conduct during construction, repair or demolition of buildings) and Section 106 (causing death by negligence) and further investigations are underway,” Anuppur district Police Superintendent Motiur Rahman told TNIE on Sunday.
Calling the government’s financial assistance to the bereaved families “inadequate,” former Congress MLA from Kotma, Suneel Saraf, demanded Rs 1 crore in compensation for each family.