2 children killed, woman injured after water tank collapses in Gurugram

A four-year-old girl and a two-and-a-half-year-old boy died after the tank collapsed at a Sector 83 slum cluster, police said.

Two children died and a woman was injured after a newly constructed cement water tank collapsed at a slum cluster near G-21 Society in Sector 83, Gurugram, on Friday afternoon, police said on Sunday.

The victims were a four-year-old girl and a two-and-a-half-year-old boy, both residents of the settlement, police said. The boy’s mother was also injured and is undergoing treatment. The incident took place around 2pm when the children, accompanied by their mothers, went near the tank to bathe, they added.

According to a complaint filed by the victims’ father, the tank had been constructed three to four days earlier and was around 10 feet long, five feet wide and five feet high. Police have identified the contractor who constructed the tank, but he has not yet been arrested or questioned. As a result, details about who commissioned the construction and who owned the tank were not immediately clear.

The father alleged that the tank was not fully constructed when the contractor filled it with water on Friday to check it and later told residents they could use it. The tank suddenly burst and a wall collapsed on the children and the boy’s mother, trapping them under the debris.

Residents pulled them out and took them to hospital, where the girl was declared dead. Victim’s father told police that the other woman and her son had gone elsewhere for treatment, and the family later learnt that the boy had also died.

The bodies were taken to the district mortuary in Sector 14 for postmortem examination before being handed over to the families. The complaint alleged that the deaths took place because the contractor and his family filled the tank before it was completely ready and used poor-quality construction material.

Police registered an FIR against the contractor at Kherki Daula police station on Saturday under Section 106 (causing death due to negligence) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).