Kolkata, Mar 18 (UNI) Two persons were killed, and ten others were injured after a five-storey under-construction building collapsed in Kolkata’s Garden Reach area late on Sunday night.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who is also nursing her head injury following a fall at her Kalighat home last week, rushed to the area to see the rescue operation on the serpentine lanes, where mobilizing. The heavy equipment for removing debris was very critical.
The NDRF and fire brigade personnel rummaged through the rubble to find any survivors or any more casualties.
Two women, one aged 47 and another aged about 55, were killed. They were taken away by the vehicles to the hospital for a necessary postmortem.
Among the 10 wounded, two of them were taken to the ICCU, and some of them were shifted to the SSKM hospital.
A local man told the police that the collapse happened around 12 in the night, and the rescue operation team took some time to reach the accident site due to power cuts, narrow lanes, and congestive lanes. The five-story building collapsed in Hazari Mollah Bagan in the Garden Reach area around midnight.
The collapse happened after the plus-four building had one more floor on the rooftop, local people alleged.
City Mayor Firhad Hakim, who visited the site, said there must be some administrative lacunae on the part of government officials to overlook the matter. The area falls under the 134th ward of Kolkata.
Municipal Corporation.
"Local councilors should not know how the buildings are for construction purposes," Hakim said.
Hakim said. Police and disaster management teams swiftly evacuated 13 people, while the search was on for survivors who may be trapped under the rubble.
West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee also visited the incident site this morning and announced compensation to the next of kin of each deceased and injured person.
“I was saddened to learn about the house collapse disaster of an under-construction building in the Garden Reach area of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation. Our Mayor, Fire Minister, Secretaries, and Commissioner of Police, civic, police, fire, and disaster management officers and teams (including NDRF, KMC, and KP teams) have been on
site throughout the night for mitigating the disaster,” the West Bengal CM posted on X.
“We shall provide compensation for the next of kin of the deceased and for the injured persons. We stand by the distressed families, and rescue operations shall continue,” she said.
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