Death toll in south Mumbai building collapse climbs to 9

Seven people have died in the collapse since Thursday night, while a search and rescue operation was still on at the crash site.

Rescue operation being carried out after a corner portion of an old six-story building collapsed at Fort area, in Mumbai, Thursday, 16 July, 2020.| PTI

Mumbai: The death toll in the building collapse in the Fort area of Mumbai has gone up to nine, one of them a 17-year boy who succumbed to his injuries at J J Hospital here on Friday, civic officials said.

Of them, seven, including two women, have died since around Thursday midnight, while a search and rescue operation was still on at the building crash site in south Mumbai, a business district, they said.

Two persons were killed after a corner portion of the six-storey building, ‘Bhanushali’, caved in around 4.45 pm on Thursday in the Fort area.

Three more persons, who were rescued from the site, were declared dead at the hospital around midnight on Thursday, while a 62-year-old woman died on Friday morning, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) officials said.

The elderly woman was taken out from the debris and rushed to the state-run J J Hospital, where she was declared brought dead, they said.

Two more persons, a 35-year-old male and a woman aged 23, were later pulled of the rubble and shifted to the J J Hospital, where they were declared brought dead on Friday afternoon, the officials said.

A 17-year-old boy, who was critically injured, also succumbed at the J J Hospital in the morning, they said.

Two persons who were injured in the collapse are undergoing treatment, the officials said.

The ill-fated building had been partly vacated for repairs by Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA), BMC sources said.

In 2019, MHADA had applied for `Intimation of Development (IoD) which the BMC granted, and thereafter it was MHADA’s responsibility to get the building vacated and repair it, Municipal Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal had told reporters late Thursday evening.

MHADA had informed that repair work had stopped due to the coronavirus outbreak and three out of 12 tenants had returned to the building after vacating initially, Chahal had said.

Mumbai Mayor Kishori Pednekar, who visited the crash site, had said the building had been declared as `C1′ category (dangerous structure) and the BMC had served notices regarding it.