A portion of a gallery collapsed at a chawl in Maharashtra’s Thane district late Sunday night, briefly trapping 10 residents, officials confirmed on Monday.
The incident occurred around 10:30 pm at the Sanjay Mhatre Chawl in the Diva area. According to Yasin Tadvi, chief of Thane Municipal Corporation’s disaster management cell, a part of the gallery slab on the first floor gave way, leading to panic among the occupants, according to the news agency PTI.
Ten people, who were inside three flats on the first floor at the time, were trapped following the collapse. Fire brigade personnel were immediately deployed to the site and successfully rescued all those affected. No casualties were reported.
As a precautionary measure, all 40 flats in the chawl, a single-storey row tenement structure, were evacuated. Residents were shifted out temporarily to ensure their safety while authorities assessed the structural integrity of the building.
Tadvi stated that the chawl, estimated to be 15 to 20 years old, was not previously listed as a dangerous structure.
Civic officials and disaster response teams continue to monitor the situation, while a structural audit is expected to determine the future course of action for the building and its residents, as per the news agency PTI.
Given the precarious condition of the structure, further safety measures were taken.
There are a total of 40 flats in the chawl and they were vacated as a precautionary measure. Around 35 to 40 residents have been advised to temporarily shift to their relatives` houses until further inspection and repairs, the official said.
One dead, two injured as auto-rickshaw crashed into water tanker in Thane
In another similar unfortunate incident, one person was killed and two others were seriously injured after an auto-rickshaw collided with a stationary water tanker in Maharashtra`s Thane city, officials said on Monday.
The incident occurred shortly before midnight on Sunday near Nitin Company-Cadbury Junction road, Thane Municipal Corporation`s disaster management cell chief Yasin Tadvi said.
Three passengers got trapped in the auto-rickshaw after it collided with a water tanker, he said. Rescue teams were immediately mobilised.
The fire brigade personnel managed to extricate the three trapped passengers after about half an hour. They were taken to a government hospital where one of them, identified as Bablu, was declared dead, the official said.
(With PTI inputs)
