At least three persons were killed and two others injured after a four-storey residential building collapsed in Navi Mumbai's CBD Belapur area early on Saturday, while two persons were rescued from under the rubble.
The incident took place around 4:50 am in Shahbaz village, officials said, adding that the tragedy could have been bigger had the other 52 residents not been evacuated from the building in time after cracks were noticed in it in the wee hours.
"The four-storey building with 13 residential units and three shops collapsed early this morning. A man and a woman who were trapped under the rubble were rescued and admitted to a hospital," Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) Commissioner Kailas Shinde said.
The rescued persons were identified as Lal Mohammad (22) and Rukhsana (21), while a search operation was underway for others, an NDRF official told PTI. While the deceased were identified as Mohammad Miraj Altaf Hussain (30), Miraj Saif Ansari (24) and Safique Ahmed Rahmat Ali Ansari (28).
Officials said that the bodies of the deceased persons have been sent for post-mortem.
A civic official said that the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and the personnel of the civic body's fire brigade launched a rescue operation. Around noon, the body of a man was recovered from under the debris, while the bodies of two others were recovered hours later.
Purushottam Jadhav, Navi Mumbai Deputy Fire Officer had told news agency ANI, "We received a call about a building collapse at 4.50 am. 2 people have been rescued. Two people are likely to be trapped and rescue operation is underway to rescue them..."
The incident comes a week after an 80-year-old woman was killed, and four others sustained injuries after a portion of a balcony of a four-storey residential building in south Mumbai came crashing down.
Earlier, in another incident, an elderly woman and her two granddaughters were killed after a dilapidated three-storey building collapsed in Jam Khambhalia town in Gujarat's Devbhumi Dwarka district amid heavy rainfall in the state's Saurashtra region.
The incident had occurred on Tuesday evening in Gagwani Fali locality of the town and bodies of the three victims were brought out after a nearly six-hour-long rescue operation that continued till midnight, and five persons were rescued, they said.
Later, the teams of NDRF, police and fire department removed debris that fell on the victims after the building collapsed as a result of heavy rains that continued to batter the region, the police said. The victims were identified as Kesharben Kanjaria (65), Pritiben Kanjaria (15) and Payalben Kanjaria (18).
