Mumbai collapse kills dozens
April 5, 2013
The collapse killed at least 45 and injured nearly 60 others with rescuers continuing to search for more casualties in the debris, a police inspector said Friday. The seven-storey building collapsed Thursday evening, leaving an 8-meter-high (26 feet) heap of steel and concrete that rescuers and residents struggled to cut through.
"The building was an unauthorized construction," Sandeep Malwi, spokesman for the Thane municipal corporation, told the AFP news agency . "We are going to investigate thoroughly into this and prepare a report."
The builders may have additionally ignored regulations, according to The Hindustan Times. "Seven floors were built in merely three to four months," the paper quoted the local head of the disaster management cell as saying. "It was bound to collapse due to the inferior construction material used by the builders."
Most of the victims had come to Mumbai to work on building sites, earning as little as a few hundred rupees (about $6 or 4.60 euros) a day. Many of their families lived onsite as well.
In 2010, a similar collapse in New Delhi killed 69 people and injured more than 80, trapping families in the lower floors.
mkg/hc (AFP, AP)