Late Sunday night, a five-storey under-construction building collapsed in Kolkata’s congested Garden Reach area. The police and disaster management personnel evacuated 10 people, with ongoing searches for any other potential trapped individuals.
The collapse occurred after midnight, initially with concrete chunks falling off the building before the entire structure collapsed, impacting neighboring residences in the densely populated area.
Kolkata Police Commissioner Vineet Goyal and senior officers, along with disaster management teams and fire service officials, responded swiftly to the scene.
Rescue operations are ongoing with injured individuals hospitalized. No deaths have been reported so far. The area is congested, and precautions are being taken during the search process.
Locals reported that the building had been under construction for six months without proper permissions from the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and police.
Rescue teams are using gas cutters to navigate through the rubble and locate survivors, with ambulances on standby.
A police officer stated, “The building collapsed on neighboring slum areas where people were sleeping.”
Political figures like Suvendu Adhikari and Indranil Khan called for immediate action and assistance from the state administration to address the disaster.