Two more bodies were recovered from the debris of an under-construction building that collapsed in Kanpur’s Jajmau locality, taking the toll to eight, ANI reported on Friday. Kanpur District Magistrate Kaushal Raj Sharma said that while five officials of the Kanpur Development Authority had been suspended since the collapse on Wednesday, three others were under scrutiny.
The top floors of the six-storey building in the Kanpur Development Authority colony caved in on Wednesday. Around 40 labourers hired for the construction had been living on different floors of the structure. The police had registered an FIR against Samajwadi Party leader Mehtab Alam, who owned the apartment. The building’s contractor has also been named in the report.
Emergency forces from the Army, National Disaster Response Force, police and firefighters had been called in for search and rescue operations. The NDRF had rescued a three-year-old girl from the rubble 12 hours after the collapse. Most of victims trapped are labourers and their families from Chhattisgarh.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday had offered his condolences after the collapse. “My thoughts are with the families of those who lost their lives in the building collapse,” he had said. Home Affairs Minister Rajnath Singh said he had spoken to senior officials about the incident. “I offer my condolences to those who lost their loved ones in Kanpur building collapse. I pray for the speedy recovery of the injured,” Singh said on Twitter.
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