COIMBATORE: The death toll in the Coimbatore building collapse has gone up to two, with Fire and Rescue personnel rescuing the body of a 72-year-old man from the debris on Monday early morning. The search operation for his wife Kasturiammal (65), who is believed to be trapped beneath the debris of a three-story building at KC Thottam, near Chetti Street in Coimbatore is still going on.
Due to the incessant rain, the roof of the three-story building collapsed and slides down on a tile roof house in Coimbatore on Sunday night. In the sudden mishap, nine people residing in those two houses got stuck into debris.
In the night-long rescue operation, six including a five-year-old male child were rescued from the collapsed building. Among them, four were admitted to Coimbatore Medical College Hospital (CMCH) with injuries. The rescue work is still going on to rescue one more woman Kasturiammal.
The deceased were identified as K Swetha alias Shalini (25) wife of Kannan and K Gopalsamy (72) who was residing in the tile roof house. The incident took place at KC Thottam near Chetti Street in Coimbatore at around 8.45 pm on Sunday night.
The three-story building was owned by Vanaja (65), the wife of Govindarajan. They have two daughters and a son Kannan. Vanaja was residing on the first floor along with her son Kannan, daughter-in-law Swetha and their son Thanveer (5). The ground floor of the house was rented to another family and the second floor was used by them.
Vanaja's daughter Kavitha, son-in-law (Husband of the second daughter Punitha) Manojkumar (47) and their relative Sarojini (70) was also there in the house on Sunday. In front of the concrete building, there was a small tile roof house where the deceased Gopalsamy lived with his wife Kasturiammal (aged around 65) and son Manikandan (42).
On Sunday night, when the building fell on the tile roof house, all the nine inmates were got stuck into the debris. The tenants of the ground floor escaped without any injuries.
Kavitha and Sarojini were rescued by the locals and the house owner Vanaja was also rescued within 15 minutes of the mishap. However, the others were not able to be reached immediately by the rescue team.
After a three-hour-long struggle, a five-year-old child was rescued by the team and he was taken to CMCH and his health condition is stable. However, the mother of the child Swetha died in the mishap. She was found next to her son. It is believed that she had saved her son from the falling roof, said, officials.
During the rescue operation, police asked the neighbouring residents from houses very close to the building to vacate their houses, like the roofs, the collapsed building started to slide again down. It made the rescue operation as hard.
However, the efforts made a positive response from the victims who were stuck into it. In a wee hour of Monday, Manojkumar and Manikandan were found alive with minor injuries, and immediately they were taken out from the debris.
The Kasturiammal is believed to be trapped in the building collapse and the rescue team is trying to save her alive. More than 200 fire and rescue service personnel and police personnel are on the rescue service and they were pressed to rescue the trapped persons.
Meanwhile, they have been clearing the debris from the backside of the building fearing it could made further fallout from the neighbouring building. Also, they feed oxygen supply to those who trapped in the collapse.
District Collector K Rajamani, and City Police Commissioner Sumit Sharan, along with deputy commissioners G Stalin (law and order) and ES Uma (Crime), MLA Amman K Arjunan, and other officials were on spot in the night to monitor the rescue operations. Coimbatore Corporation Commission Kumaravel Pandian also visited the spot on Monday.