New Delhi: A concrete slab was being laid on the first floor of an old single-storey house in Milan Garden, Harsh Vihar, on Sunday evening. The roof below it gave way. Both slabs came down, and two men working there were buried.
Chanderpal, 60, and Vijay Kumar, 33, described by officials as father and son, were pulled out and taken to hospital, where doctors declared them dead. As debris was cleared through the night, the toll rose, and three bodies had been recovered by Monday morning, officials said. Rescue work continued at the site.
The Delhi Fire Services received a call at 6.46 pm and sent five fire tenders. Teams from the National Disaster Response Force, Delhi Police, Civil Defence and the Delhi Disaster Management Authority joined, along with four ambulances. The operation was slowed by the layout: Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police Sandeep Lamba said the area is so enclosed that rescuers initially struggled to identify which building had fallen.
Delhi minister Kapil Mishra, who visited the site with minister Ashish Sood, said the collapse appeared to have begun with an attempt to install a new lintel, which brought down the floor below. A resident gave a similar account, saying the older slab was weak and the new one being cast above it pulled it down.
Seventeen labourers were working at the site, one of them, Dilip, told reporters. The building housed a godown on the ground floor and stood on a 200-square-yard plot. Its owner has been traced and legal proceedings have been initiated, police said. The cause of the collapse and the status of construction approvals are still being established.
The house is the third in Delhi to fall in seven weeks. A five-storey building housing a students' hostel collapsed in Satya Niketan on September 6, killing seven people. On October 6, a building came down in Seemapuri, killing three people, including a child.
Mishra linked such collapses to illegal construction in colonies including Seemapuri, Seelampur, Mustafabad and Babarpur, and said inspections had been carried out.