Google – AFP, 4 January 2014
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File
picture of buildings under construction in New Delhi last year (AFP/File,
Prakash Singh)
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Panaji —
Thirteen bodies were pulled from the wreckage of a building under construction
that collapsed "like a house of cards" in a coastal village in the
Indian tourist state of Goa on Saturday, authorities said.
The
residential building caved in around mid-afternoon, when some 50 daily wage
labourers, were working on the site, police said.
"We
have got 13 bodies from the wreckage. We expect the death toll to rise,"
Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar told AFP.
A witness
said the building collapsed like "a pack of cards".
Fire and
emergency service crews rushed to the spot. Rescue workers using cranes and
bulldozers, shovels and bare hands, struggled to shift concrete slabs and other
debris to free the trapped labourers.
Hundreds of
onlookers stood watching the rescue efforts as police sought to shoo them away
from the site, saying they were hampering access for machinery.
"The
current priority is to rescue people trapped under the rubble and the
government has also taken help of the army to clear the debris," Parikkar
told the Press Trust of India separately.
Parrikar
had been near the village to attend a state-sponsored folklore festival that
was later cancelled by the government.
The
building collapse, the latest in a string of deadly construction cave-ins in
India recently, occurred in the seaside village of Canacona, south of the
capital city of Panaji.
Initial
reports said that the structure was five-storey apartment residence.
"We
will immediately arrest the builder, the contractor and municipal officials
involved in sanctioning this construction site," the chief minister said.
"I am
personally monitoring the situation," he added.
He said
that police had already filed complaints against those people involved in the
construction of the building.
The bodies
were shifted to a morgue at a nearby hospital.
Last
September, a rundown five-storey residential block in India's financial hub
Mumbai collapsed, killing 60 people.
The
building had been listed by municipal authorities as needing "urgent
repairs", according to local media reports.
Last April,
another building collapse in Mumbai killed 74 people.
The
incidents have highlighted shoddy construction and violations of the building
code, amid burgeoning demand for housing in many parts of India and endemic
corruption.
Falling
buildings are a nationwide problem in India.
The British
daily, The Guardian, collected statistics showing that 2,651 people were killed
across India in 2012 due to the collapse of 2,737 structures, including houses
and bridges.
Real estate
experts say that many buildings collapse because construction codes are not
followed and there is no attention to building safety.
In another
of the worst recent Indian cases, 69 people were killed and more than 80
injured in a building collapse in the capital New Delhi in 2010.
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