At least 49 killed in Mumbai building collapse

At least 49 people, including 12 children, have been killed after a residential building being constructed illegally in a suburb of India’s financial capital, Mumbai, collapsed into a mound of steel and concrete.

Rescue workers with sledgehammers, saws and hydraulic jacks aided by police dogs struggled to break through the rubble of the eight-storey building in the search for survivors.

RS Rajesh of the national disaster response force said more than 20 people were still missing by early evening yesterday and three floors of the building in Thane, 30km (19 miles) from Mumbai, remained to be searched. The rescue of a six-month-old baby from the rubble was hailed as a “miracle” by locals as more than 50 people with head wounds, fractures and spinal injuries were admitted to a nearby hospital.

Police said four floors of the building were occupied and workers were adding the eighth storey when the entire structure crumbled within seconds.

Many of the dead included construction workers staying in the building as they worked on it, police said.

Municipal officials said the building, like some 2,000 others in nearby areas, did not have the necessary clearances from the local authorities. Police were looking for the builders of the apartment, who fled immediately after the incident.

The building collapse underlines the issue of illegal construction across India. The massive demand for housing in cities, along with pervasive corruption, allows builders to erect illegal buildings or add unauthorised floors to existing ones.

In 2012 India’s ministry of housing and urban poverty alleviation estimated that the countrywide urban housing shortage was more than 19 million. But the unofficial demand is twice that number in a population of more than 1.2 billion.

Consequently, collapses are common as builders construct housing blocks without architects or structural engineers and with poor-quality material.

Local TV news featured a whistleblower who claimed to have written to Thane’s local authorities complaining about the illegal building several times but that no action was taken.