Mumbai: The death toll in the building collapse in the Fort area of Mumbai has gone up to nine. Earlier Friday morning, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) officials said the death toll stood at six. It had also said that a 17-year-old boy was very critical. The boy succumbed to his injuries at JJ Hospital here.
Of the nine, seven, including two women, have died since around Thursday midnight, while a search and rescue operation was still on at the building crash site in south Mumbai, a business district, BMC officials said.
Two persons were killed after a corner portion of the six-storey building, ‘Bhanushali’, caved in around 4.45pm Thursday. Three more persons, who were rescued from the site, were declared dead at the hospital around midnight Thursday, while a 62-year-old woman died Friday morning.
Two more persons, a 35-year-old male and a woman aged 23, were later pulled out of the rubble and shifted to the JJ Hospital, where they were declared brought dead Friday afternoon, officials informed.
Also read: Death toll in south Mumbai building collapse rises to 6
Two persons who were injured in the collapse are undergoing treatment, the officials said.
The ill-fated building had been partly vacated for repairs by Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA), BMC sources said.
In 2019, MHADA had applied for ‘Intimation of Development’ (IoD) which the BMC granted, and thereafter it was MHADA’s responsibility to get the building vacated and repair it, Municipal Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal had told reporters late Thursday evening.
MHADA informed that repair work had stopped due to the coronavirus outbreak and three out of 12 tenants had returned to the building after vacating initially, Chahal had said.
Mumbai Mayor Kishori Pednekar, who visited the crash site, had said the building had been declared as ‘C1’ category (dangerous structure) and the BMC had served notices regarding it.