Death toll climbs to four in Bhiwandi building collapse

Mumbai: Early morning Saturday, the team carrying out rescue operations at Tahir Biznor — the illegal Bhiwandi building that collapsed Friday morning – recovered the bodies of women, taking the death toll to four. Nine others were injured when the structure came crashing down on Friday. The Bhiwandi police detained the owner of the building, Tahir Ansari, and questioned him as to why the structure had not been vacated despite notices from the Bhiwandi-Nizampur city municipal corporation (BNCMC).

The incident occurred when a majority of the building’s residents were sound asleep. It was only after onlookers and neighbours alerted them that they tried to escape. However, more than 11 people got trapped in the debris and were rescued by Friday evening and taken to a nearby government hospital for treatment.

An official said, “We had the list of missing people which stated one woman to be missing. Hence, we continued our search in order to find the person.” Teams from the Regional Disaster Management Cell and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) continued with rescue operations from Friday morning to Saturday afternoon.

Officials at BNCMC claimed that in addition to Tahir Biznor, there were many other illegal structures in the area, Navi Basti. An official who did not wish to be named said, “Even after sending notices to these people, they continue to stay and then blame us if anything wrong happens.”