The death toll in yesterday’s collapse of an under-construction building here mounted to 41 as the rescuers armed with sensor-fitted equipment were still looking for survivors and bodies in the massive debris of bricks, mortar and twisted steel.
Those dead included nine women and 11 children, Thane Civic Corporation sources said today.
Of around 60 injured, 36 have been admitted to various hospitals in Thane district, while five seriously wounded have been shifted to J J Hospital and Sion Hospital in Mumbai.
The seven-storey unauthorised structure, which according to locals had come up in just two months at Shil Phata at Daighar in Thane district, had come down crashing in a heap last evening around 6.30 p.m., in one of worst such tragedies in Maharashtra.
Alok Awasthi, Commandant of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), which has been pressed into service to assist the local police and civic administration in rescue efforts, said 59 people had been pulled out alive but some more survivors could still be trapped under the debris.
Cranes were being used to remove the rubble, floor-by-floor, to trace the survivors with the help of life detector sensors which could pick up signals from possible survivors from 70 metre deep, he said.
The State-of-the-art equipment fitted with thermal cameras were being inserted into the wreckage after making holes to locate survivors and extricate them with gas cutters, Awasthi said.
“The presence of large number of people and noise are hampering rescue efforts as it is difficult for the sensors to pick up signals of existing life under such a huge wreckage,” said the NDRF Commandant, whose team of 90 men is working round-the-clock, at the scene of the incident.
Awasthi said though he was not an engineer, the poor quality of construction was primarily responsible for the tragedy.
“I am not an engineer or a building expert but poor quality of construction and material, besides non-adherence to construction norms for high-rise building has caused this tragedy,” he said.