A person was injured after a three-storeyed building collapsed in east Delhi's Laxmi Nagar area, late on Saturday night. A bigger tragedy, however, was averted as the building mostly housed office spaces, which were shut because of the weekend. The building had earlier been declared unsafe but was later thrown open again.
According to sources, four persons were inside the building when the incident took place but fortunately the Disaster Management Response team reached the site within minutes and all of them were rescued in time.
Raju, an eyewitness, said: "I live in the street hardly 10 steps from the location. Around 1.30am, I heard a loud sound. Before I could understand anything, the entire building collapsed."
Balkar Singh, 45, who lives in an adjacent house, was asleep at the time and suffered from a fractured thumb. He also had to get stitches on his head and hands. His son Harpreet Singh said: "We have been writing to the civic authorities regarding the building for about five years now. To our misfortune, they neglected our complaints. Now, my father is injured. Who is responsible for this?"
Talking about the incident, a District Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) official said: "After receiving the police information, we reached the location around 1.30am. The DDMA members, Police Control Room (PCR) vehicles, and fire tenders immediately began the rescue operations."
The building was declared dangerous by the East Delhi Municpal Corporation (EDMC) and was sealed in 2011. The owner then got it repaired and threw it open to the public again. Owner of the building, Mohan Sharma, who sustained minor scratches, said he had taken all due permissions before re-opening the building.
A senior MCD official said: "The building was sealed in 2011. After doing the repair work, the owner got permission to reopen it three years later. We have initiated a probe to ascertian the cause of the collapse. Also, we are taking up a survey of the adjoining buildings, which, too, have been found to be weak."
