13 dead in Maha building collapse

Thane: Thirteen persons, including seven children, died and 20 others, including a four-year-old boy, were rescued after a three-storeyed building collapsed in Maharashtra’s Bhiwandi town on Monday, police said. The 43-year-old Jhilani building caved in at 3.40 am, police said, adding a two-year-old boy is among the dead.
Two civic officials have been suspended in connection with the collapse and an offence has been registered against the building owner, an official said.
Personnel of the Thane Disaster Response Force (TDRF) pulled out the four-year-old boy, Ubed Quraishi, from the debris and fed him water.
The building at Bhiwandi, a powerloom town around 10 km from Thane, had 40 flats and around 150 persons lived there, an official said.
A civic official told PTI that the building, located at Narpoli’s Patel Compound near Dhamankar Naka, collapsed while the residents were asleep.
Teams of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) are at the spot. NDRF DG S N Pradhan said they used a canine squad to search persons trapped in the debris. A portion of the building collapsed and many occupants were trapped in the debris, a Thane Municipal Corporation official said.
The building was not in the list of dilapidated structures of the Bhiwandi-Nizampur Municipal Corporation (BNMC), he said. An eyewitness said local residents rushed to the spot immediately after the collapse and helped pull out some persons from the debris. (PTI)