Another building collapse in Delhi, 2 men dead
What's the story
A tragic building collapse in northeast Delhi's Milan Garden area killed two men, Chanderpal (60) and Vijay Kumar (33), NDTV reported. The incident occurred on Sunday evening when two slabs of the structure caved in. The victims, believed to be father and son, were trapped under the debris and later pronounced dead at the hospital.
Rescue efforts
5 fire tenders rushed to spot
The building, owned by a certain Manoj Kumar, had a godown on the ground floor and an additional structure on the first floor. Both parts of the building collapsed.
The Delhi Fire Services received a call about the incident at 6:46pm and rushed five fire tenders to the spot for rescue operations.
Previous incident
Similar incident in Satya Niketan weeks ago
This incident comes weeks after another building collapse in Satya Niketan, which had killed seven people.
The Satya Niketan structure was being used as a boys' paying guest accommodation and was undergoing basement repairs when it collapsed.
Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police Sandeep Lamba said the Milan Garden building was an old single-storey structure with ongoing construction for an additional floor.
Official response
Delhi ministers visit site, oversee rescue operations
Before the deaths were confirmed, Delhi ministers Kapil Mishra and Ashish Sood visited the site to oversee rescue operations.
Earlier, Mishra said firefighters and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) personnel were working hard, adding that no fatalities had been reported at that time.
He called it an "unfortunate incident" and said all relevant agencies would investigate what led to this tragedy.
Cause investigation
An attempt was made to install new lintel, says Mishra
Mishra also gave a preliminary assessment of the possible cause of the collapse.
He said it seemed an attempt was made to install a new lintel, which collapsed and caused the floor below to cave in, trapping two people.
A local said the collapse happened while laying a concrete slab for the additional floor, adding that "the existing lower slab was weak."