11 killed as four-storey building in northeast Delhi's Mustafabad caves in

ELeven people were killed, eighter of them from a fellowship, after a four-storey unauthorised residential edifice collapsed in the Dayalpur hamlet country in Mustafabad, northeast Delhi, in the early hours of Saturday, police officers said. The incident, they added, left 11 others with varying degrees of injuries.The collapse happened around 2.30am in Gali no 3, locals said, where homes stand cheek by jowl. Delhi Fire Services (DFS) chief Atul Garg said the first distress call was received at 2.50am, after which nine fire tenders were rushed to the site, a 60-square-yard plot.Officials said 22 people were in the building that housed three families. With first responders initially struggling to navigate the narrow lanes, most of those rescued were pulled out in the first hour after the collapse by neighbours.“When we saw the house, all of us rushed to pull out the people we could see. We could hear people screaming for help,” said Mohammad Yusuf, who lives three houses away.The dead included five men, three women and two children. Among them was 60-year-old Mohammad Tehsin, who owned the building, and seven members of his family. Of the 11 people admitted to the hospital, six were discharged after initial treatment while five are still undergoing treatment.Four of the dead were among the 14 who were pulled out of the debris in the early hours and taken to GTB hospital in Dilshad Garden.The search for survivors then entered an agonising eight-hour wait as rescuers strained to reach those who had been on the lower floors of the building, now buried under the concrete slabs of the higher floors.“This is what we call a pancake collapse where chances of survival are minimal. The debris had to be cleared slowly and carefully,” said National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) deputy inspector general Mohsen Shahedi, who explained that had the building fallen over to one side, the outcome may have been different.The only other survivor pulled out after this point was an 58-year-old woman, later identified as Tehsin’s wife Zeenat, who was conscious while being taken to the hospital around noon. The last of the seven remaining bodies were pulled out around 3pm and the rescue operations concluded around 11pm.By 4am, the search and rescue operation by teams of Delhi Fire Services (DFS), National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), and Delhi Police, Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA), who were assisted by local volunteers, was called.The four-storey building, as with the hundreds if not thousands of other structures in the Dayalpur village, was part of the sprawling problem of unauthorised settlements across the national capital.The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) said in a statement that the building was around 20 years old and was not structurally stable.The civic body said that a survey of the area will be carried out, adding that several buildings in the locality, including the one that collapsed, were not structurally stable. “Strict action will be taken against those found guilty of negligence,” MCD said.Residents and police teams said the building housed four shops on the ground floor. Tehsin and his family lived on the first and second floors, with the third and fourth floors rented out to two families. Locals also said that the owner had started some work a couple of days ago to break a dividing wall and conjoin two shops on the ground floor.“Many neighbours saw Tehsin getting the demolition work done till around Saturday midnight,” said Saleem Khan, a neighbour. One of Tehsin’s sons, Aas Mohammad, was killed in the 2020 north-east Delhi riots.The first team to reach the spot was the DFS. “A team from Gokulpur fire station reached the spot 10 minutes after the call. Locals told us that around 14 people were rescued in the initial period. A team of at least 50 fire officials was sent, including senior officials,” said DFS officer Rajinder Atwal.Additional deputy commissioner of police Sandeep Lamba said that the Dayalpur police received a call at 3.02am. “ Till around 4am, 14 people had been rescued and shifted to GTB Hospital in Dilshad Garden, where four of them were declared dead on arrival by the attending doctors,” Lamba said.Lamba said that a case has been registered and further probe was underway. “A case on charges of causing death by negligence has been registered under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and we are investigating,” he said.Following the incident, chief minister Rekha Gupta ordered a probe and said that strict action would be ensured against those responsible. “Arrangements have been made for proper treatment of all the injured. My deepest condolences to those who died in this unfortunate accident,” Gupta posted on X.President Droupadi Murmu condoled the loss of lives. “The news of the deaths of many people including children and women in the unfortunate incident of collapse of a building in Mustafabad, Delhi is extremely sad. I express my deepest condolences to all the bereaved families. I pray for the speedy recovery of those injured,” Murmu said in a post in Hindi on X.Prime Minister Narendra Modi too expressed his condolences to those who lost their loved ones and announced an ex-gratia of ₹2 lakh from the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund for the next of kin of each deceased. The injured will be given ₹50,000 each.