Seventeen persons, including a mother-daughter duo, were killed and six others seriously injured after a portion of an unauthorised four-story building collapsed on an adjacent vacant tenement at Virar in Maharashtra's Palghar district on Wednesday, officials said.
While six bodies were retrieved from under the debris, six others died during treatment at various hospitals. Five other bodies were recovered from the site on Thursday.
The operation to remove rubble at the crash site has been going on even after more than 20 hours have passed since the rear portion of Ramabai Apartment collapsed on Wednesday at 12.05 am.
The Vasai Virar Municipal Corporation (VVMC) stated in a release that six persons remain admitted to various hospitals in the area and Nalasopara on the outskirts of Mumbai. Three others were discharged after treatment.
The police arrested the builder of the building after Vasai Virar Municipal Corporation (VVMC) lodged a complaint.
Authorities have so far identified seven of the 12 deceased as Arohi Omkar Jovil (24), her one-year-old daughter Utkarsha Jovil, Laxman Kisku Singh (26), Dinesh Prakash Sapkal (43), Supriya Nivalkar (38), Arnav Nivalkar (11), and Parvati Sapkal.
District Collector Indu Rani Jakhar has said that some more persons may still be buried under the debris.
Luckily, the chawl or tenement on which the building collapsed was vacant, said Vivekanand Kadam, district disaster management officer of Palghar.
As a precautionary measure, all the chawls around the ill-fated building have been vacated and occupants shifted to safer places, he said.
Constructed in 2012, Ramabai Apartment has 50 flats, and the collapsed part had 12 apartments, said Kadam.
A spokesperson of the Vasai Virar Municipal Corporation confirmed that the building was "illegal".
The removal of debris was delayed because officials initially struggled to bring heavy machinery to the crashed building located in a congested locality.
"As of now, debris clearance is still underway. For the first several hours, the debris had to be cleared manually by civic teams and two units of the NDRF. Now, the operation is being carried out with machinery and progressing on a war footing," VVMC Assistant Commissioner Gilson Gonsalves said.
The collapse has rendered several families homeless.
"All affected families have been temporarily housed at Chandansar Samajmandir. We are providing food, water, medical assistance, and other essential services," Gonsalves said.