Twelve people died and seven other were injured when a building collapsed outside Mumbai in the early hours of Tuesday. A rescue team from Indian disaster management agency pulled seven people out of the rubble alive after the three-story building - named Krishna Nivas - collapsed in Thane at 2 a.m. local time while residents were asleep inside.
"We used various equipments, including sniffer dogs, who helped us locate victims stuck in the rubble. We also used were air-lifting bags and victim location camera," said Sachidanand Gawde, an official of National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), according to DNA India.
Six women and a seven-year-old girl were among those killed, according to PTI. It is the second major building collapse in the area within a week. Nine people were killed and half a dozen injured in Matruchhaya Building collapse on July 29.
"We were all sleeping. Suddenly, the floors started moving and before we could run to safety, the building came crashing down with a loud sound," one of the survivors said, according to IANS.
"We thought that the loud sound was of drums being delivered at the dairy nearby. It was only when the electricity went off and there was dust all over that we realised that the building had collapsed," local resident Santosh Bhatade told Mumbai Mirror.
The 50-year-old building had been declared "dangerous" and "unsafe" by municipal authorities. The local Thane Municipal Corporation had issued notices to residents to evacuate the building, according to Hindustan Times. Some families had vacated the building but at least five families were living in the structure at the time of collapse.
More than 100 buildings have collapsed in Mumbai between 2008 and 2012, according to BBC. More than 50 occupants of these buildings were killed in crashes.
