At least 24 people were killed and nine others injured when a seven-story building collapsed in Mumbai, officials said yesterday as rescue workers continued to dig through the rubble for survivors.
At least 10 others were feared trapped in the rubble of the residential building in Mumbai's Borivali neighborhood, said Gopal Shetty, a state lawmaker.
The building collapsed late on Wednesday.
desperate
Rescue workers toiled through the night, often pulling aside chunks of masonry with their bare hands, in an attempt to find survivors.
"The priority is to rescue people who may be trapped inside," Shetty said.
By yesterday morning, cranes were brought in to lift large slabs of concrete and workers began removing bodies from the rubble.
However, rescue efforts were hampered by sporadic monsoon showers.
Four people, including two women, were plucked from under mounds of concrete, twisted metal bars and mud by rescuers who carried them to a nearby hospital on makeshift stretchers.
Some relatives waited anxiously by a white board in the hospital where names of the dead were posted, while others chose to huddle under umbrellas at the site waiting and hoping for survivors.
"My uncle and aunt are dead," a weeping Sushil Kothari said. "We can't reach my cousins. They aren't answering their phones. Why is this happening?"
Witnesses described the chaos of the collapse.
"There was a huge sound and a crash," said Meghna Parekh who lives nearby. "We rushed out and all we saw was this huge mountain of mud and no building."
The building housed several stores, a clinic and residences.
It was not immediately clear what caused the collapse.
Shetty said poor quality cement may have been used in the construction of the 20-year-old building.
renovations
However, J. Phatak, a senior city official, said residents reported extensive renovations to the building by a jewelry store on the ground floor of the building.
Mumbai authorities routinely demolish shoddy buildings ahead of the monsoon rains but this building was not listed as dangerous, Phatak said.
Building collapses are frequent in India - where construction is often hastily carried out with little regard for safety regulations.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS