MUMBAI, India: A residential building being constructed illegally on forest land in a suburb of India's financial capital collapsed into a mound of steel and concrete, killing at least 45 people and injuring more than 50 others, authorities said yesterday.
The eight-story building in the Mumbai suburb of Thane caved in Thursday evening, police said. Rescue workers with sledgehammers, gasoline-powered saws and hydraulic jacks struggled yesterday to break through the tower of rubble in their search for possible survivors. Six bulldozers were brought to the scene.
"There may be (a) possibility people have been trapped inside right now," local police commissioner K.P. Raghuvanshi said yesterday.
At the time of the collapse, between 100 and 150 people were in the building. Many were residents or construction workers, who were living at the site as they worked on it, said Sandeep Malvi, a spokesman for the Thane government.
More than 20 people remained missing yesterday afternoon and three floors of the building remained to be searched, said R.S. Rajesh, an official with the National Disaster Response Force who was at the scene.
"All the three floors are sandwiched ... so it's very difficult for us," he said.
The dead included 12 children, police said.
A nearby hospital was filled with the injured, many of whom had head wounds, fractures and spinal injuries. Hospital officials searched in vain for the parents of an injured 10-month-old girl who had been rescued.
At least four floors of the building had been completed and were occupied. Workers had finished three more floors and were adding the eighth when it collapsed, police Inspector Digamber Jangale said.
47 dead in Mumbai building collapse
