Six dead as unauthorised building collapses in Virar, Maharashtra

Palghar, Aug 27 (PTI) Six persons were killed and eight others seriously injured after a portion of an unauthorised four-story building collapsed on an adjacent vacant building at Virar in Maharashtra's Palghar district, officials said.

A National Disaster Response Force team retrieved three more bodies from beneath the debris on Wednesday evening, more than 18 hours after the rear portion of Ramabai Apartment collapsed at 12.05 am.

Police arrested the builder of the building after Vasai Virar Municipal Corporation (VVMC) lodged a complaint.

The deceased were identified as Arohi Omkar Jovil (24), her one-year-old daughter Utkarsha Jovil, Laxman Kisku Singh (26), Dinesh Prakash Sapkal (43), Supriya Nivalkar (38) and Arnav Nivalkar (11).

District collector Indu Rani Jakhar visited the site. It was suspected that some more persons were still buried under the debris, she said.

Luckily, the chawl or tenement on which the building collapsed was vacant, said Vivekanand Kadam, District Disaster Management Officer of Palghar.

As a precautionary measure, all the chawls around the ill-fated building have been vacated and occupants shifted to safter places he said.

Constructed in 2012, Ramabai Apartment has 50 flats, and the collapsed part had 12 apartments, said Kadam.

The injured were admitted to various hospitals in the area and Nalasopara on the outskirts of Mumbai.

A spokesperson of the Vasai Virar Municipal Corporation confirmed that the building was “illegal".

The removal of debris was delayed because officials initially struggled to bring heavy machinery to the crashed building located in a congested locality.

"As of now, debris clearance is still underway. For the first several hours, the debris had to be cleared manually by civic teams and two units of the NDRF. Now, the operation is being carried out with machinery and progressing on a war footing," VVMC Assistant Commissioner Gilson Gonsalves said.

The collapse has rendered several families homeless.

"All affected families have been temporarily housed at Chandansar Samajmandir. We are providing food, water, medical assistance, and other essential services," Gonsalves said. PTI COR NR NSK KRK