The five-storey building in western Maharashtra state’s Raigad district, collapsed on Monday evening.
The rescue workers pulled more than 60 people alive from the rubble of a building in an industrial town near India’s financial capital Mumbai.
A senior official named Bharatshet Maruti Gogawale told Reuters on Tuesday, “One resident was dead and at least 30 were still trapped. And the rescue efforts still continue.”
The building was comprised of 47 flats which housed roughly 200 residents, built on weak foundations.
Police officials in Mahad town situated about 165 km (100 miles) south of Mumbai said in a statement, “NDRF rescue teams and canine squads were deployed to the scene of the accident.”
Until today, local residents and police combed through tin sheets, metal rods and other wreckage in a desperate search for survivors as ambulances ferried victims to nearby hospitals amid heavy monsoon rains and fears of COVID-19 infections.
Former Mahad legislator Manik Motiram Jagtap told the local TV9 Marathi channel that the structure was 10 years old.
The office of Uddhav Thackeray, chief minister of Maharashtra state, “The cause of the accident was not clear. But, we had been in touch with local representatives in the area,” the tweet said.
As we know, building collapses are common in India, usually due to shoddy construction, substandard materials and disregard of regulations. More than 1,200 people were killed in 1,161 building collapses across India in 2017, according to latest data from the National Crime Records Bureau.
