Mumbai Building Collapse Kills at Least 35

nlarge Image

European Pressphoto Agency

Rescue work as the site of a collapsed building in the suburb of Thane Thursday.

MUMBAI—A building that was being constructed illegally in a Mumbai suburb collapsed, killing 35 people and injuring more than 50 others, police said Friday.

The building in the Mumbai suburb of Thane caved in Thursday evening. Rescue workers with sledgehammers, gasoline-powered saws and hydraulic jacks were struggling to break through the rubble in their search for possible survivors. Six bulldozers had been brought to the scene.

"There may be [a] possibility people have been trapped inside right now," the local police commissioner K.P. Raghuvanshi said Friday.

More than 20 people remained missing and three floors of the building have yet to be searched, said R. S. Rajesh, an official with the National Disaster Response Force who was at the scene.

"All the three floors are sandwiched ... so it's is very difficult for us," he said, adding that rescuers were continuing to pull survivors from the wreckage.

Among the dead were at least 11 children, police said.

The first four floors had residences and offices that were occupied at the time of the collapse.

Workers also were adding four more floors and had finished three before the building fell, inspector Digamber Jangale said.

Some of the dead were construction workers staying in the building as they worked on it, the inspector said.

The building did not have the necessary clearances from local authorities, he added.

It was not immediately clear what caused the structure to collapse, but Mr. Raghuvanshi said the building structure was weak.

Police initially said that they had arrested the builder and his associate, but later the police commissioner said authorities were still looking for the builders.

"The inquiry is ongoing. We are all busy with the rescue operation; our priority now is to rescue as many as possible," Mr. Raghuvanshi said.

Police with rescue dogs were searching the building Friday, which appeared to have buckled and collapsed upon itself. Rescuers and nearby residents stood on the remains of the roof trying to get to the people trapped inside. Residents carried the injured into ambulances and one man carried a small child caked white with dust from the wreckage.

Mr. Raghuvanshi said rescue workers had saved 15 people from the wreckage.