Five dead, 13 injured in Delhi building collapse

Congress and BJP Delhi unit chief Ajay Maken and Satish Upadhyay respectively reached Vishnu Garden building collapse site in Delhi on Sunday to take stock of the situation.

Building collapses are frequent in India as developers use substandard materials or add unauthorized floors.

The rescue operations are underway to rescue those feared trapped in the debris.

“The body of the small girl was pulled out from the debris a little while ago”, joint commissioner of New Delhi police Dependra Pathak told AFP, adding that eight others were injured in the incident.

The collapse occurred late on Saturday when a four-storey building in the Indian capital, New Delhi, caved in.

“These buildings are really old and built by local, unqualified guys without any proper checks”, he said. Senior AAP leader and party MLA from Tilak Nagar Jarnail Singh has held the municipal corporation responsible for the incident.

The ill-fated building fell on an adjacent building, destroying it. “We had shifted out two years back because of the poor sanitation condition in the area”.

Most infamously in recent years, in September 2013, a five-storey building in the region around the Mazagaon docks in Mumbai crumbled, leaving 61 people dead.

Taking a dig at the mishap, the Director General of NDRF explained, “The structure of the 4-storey building was weak”.

An FIR has registered against the building’s owner for negligence and culpable homicide.

Dilip Shah, a property analyst in Mumbai, blames corruption for such tragic accidents.

The deceased have been identified as Sandhya (30), Om Prakash (50), Bina (15) and Sarvati (33), they said. “This way, they can slip poor quality material or bad plans past the authority”.