CHENNAI: A portion of a dilapidated 70-year-old building collapsed on the Perambur Barracks Road on Tuesday morning. No one was injured in the incident. Fire and rescue services personnel said they suspect the building collapsed due to the heavy overnight rain.
Passersby alerted the fire and rescue department. Tenders from Vepery, Egmore and Esplanade rushed to the spot and within an hour cleared the debris and traffic was restored on the road. A fire and rescue department personnel said, “The building has been empty for several months. It has been marked for demolition, but the process has not started. When it collapsed around 9:30 on Tuesday morning, nobody was inside the building and luckily nobody was under it too.”
“The corporation had served a demolition notice to the building last year,” the fire and rescue department personnel added. Corporation officials said the building was constructed in the 1960s. On December 7, 2022, the corporation served a demolition notice to the owners. They got the notice only on April 28 this year, but they failed to start the demolition process.
The corporation also filed a police complaint the same day. Four days later, the building collapsed. The owners of the plot measuring 2,560 sq ft are AY Ahmed Toufique, AY Syed Naseer, AY Mahathi Hussain, AY Umar Hussain and AY Pathur Rabbani.
Minister for Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department PK Sekarbabu, along with corporation officials visited the spot and took stock of the situation. This is the second old building to collapse in the city within a fortnight. On April 19, a 60-year-old building collapsed in Mannady.