3 more deaths in Mumbai’s Fort building collapse

A day after the century-old Bhanushali building at Fort in south Mumbai collapsed, the toll reached 10, with a 17-year-old boy succumbing to his injuries at Sir

A day after the century-old Bhanushali building at Fort in south Mumbai collapsed, the toll reached 10, with a 17-year-old boy succumbing to his injuries at Sir JJ Hospital on Friday and three more bodies being recovered from the rubble. Twenty-seven people were safely rescued, while two people are being treated for serious injuries.

HT Image

Among the victims are Padmalal Gupta, 50, Jyotsna Gupta, 70, Kusum Gupta, 45, Kalpesh, 22, Rinku Chaurasiya, 25, Lalit Chaurasiya, 35, Manishaben Fareya, 65 and Shailesh Kanno, 17. Three of them are from one family. Two of the deceased have not been identified yet.

On Thursday, a large portion of the rear corner of the ground-plus-six storey structure collapsed in Fort. There were 27 residential and 31 non-residential apartments in the building, with 30 people staying in the building at the time of the incident. The incident took place at 4.43pm. Termed “one of the riskiest operations” by the fire brigade, several people were feared to be trapped under the debris and some were stranded inside the building, as the staircase was blocked after the collapse.

Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had vacated the building before the monsoon. As it is a cessed building, the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (Mhada) had issued a no-objection certificate to the tenants for repairs at their own cost.

In a press statement issued on Friday, Mhada said, “All necessary permissions required were given to the tenants by BMC in June 2019. The building was 100 years old and the tenants wanted to repair the building at their own cost without using the cess amount.”

Tenants of the building said they were prepared to repair the building with the required permissions, however, the plan got delayed due to the pandemic.

Rakesh Jain, one of the shop owners, said, “The building needed urgent repairs and we were very scared as it had rained in the past couple of days. We were going to start the repairs in March, as all tenants had collected money and deposited it in the bank. However, the work got delayed owing the lockdown and after that there were no labourers in the city.”

Jain’s father nearly escaped death as he saw the building shake and rushed out. He said, “My father was closing our shop when he noticed that something had fallen inside the shop. When he went to check, locals asked him to rush out.”

Mhada has now offered alternative accommodation to the residents. Vinod Ghosalkar, chairman, Mhada (repair board), said, “We expressed our readiness to provide them transit accommodation which are available in Borivli and Magathane. However, no one has come forward to claim the accommodation till now.”

He said Mhada will investigate this case and decide the next step. The fire brigade said the search operation was still on.

Bhanushali building (above) is opposite Kothari Mansion, a portion of which collapsed in June 2018 after a fire. The structure was then demolished as it was dilapidated.

The locality has many such dilapidated buildings that are due for repairs.