india

Updated: Jul 15, 2019 10:27 IST

The death toll from the collapse of a three-storey building in the Himachal Pradesh’s Solan rose to seven after four more bodies, all Indian Army soldiers, were pulled out from debris during the rescue operation, officials said on Monday.

The building housing a small eatery and a small guest house collapsed following heavy rains on Sunday afternoon when 30 Junior Commissioned Officers (JCOs) of Assam Rifles, all from the nearby Dagshai cantonment, were eating lunch there.

Nearly 15 civilians, including the eatery’s staff, were also present inside the building on Nahan-Kumarhati Road near Solan, some 55km away from Chandigarh.

The dead now includes six soldiers of the Indian Army and the wife of the building’s owner, according to officials. The dead JCOs have been identified as Raj Kishore, Balwinder Singh, Vinod, Ajit Kumar, Pardeep Chand and Yogesh and the woman as Archana Devi.

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Nearly 12 more people, including seven soldiers, were still feared trapped in the building. Twenty-seven people, including 17 soldiers and 10 civilians, have been rescued from the debris.

National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) official Ajay Verma, who is involved in the rescue operations, said the bodies retrieved from the debris were badly crushed. “We are praying for some life in the debris,” Verma said.

Solan’s deputy commissioner KC Chaman said many people are still trapped and search and rescue operation will continue for a few more hours. Cutting the cemented structure was taking time, he said.

As a team of the army and NDRF staff continued to search for survivors beneath the debris, inconsolable cries of the family members of those stuck inside could be heard as a body was pulled out at about 3am on Monday.

It rained in the first few hours of the rescue operation which began at 4.30pm on Sunday. Since then, there have been no rains allowing the rescuers to continue their operation. The area had been witnessing heavy rains for the last four days.

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Chaman said the reason behind the building collapse will be clear only after a probe.

“This building was constructed in 2009 and a floor was added to it recently. An FIR (first information report) against the owner has already been lodged,” he said while speaking to the media at the rescue site.

Chief minister Jairam Thakur has already ordered a probe into the incident and is likely to visit the site later in the day.

‘Worst disaster in the area’

Locals said it was the worst disaster in the area where the building collapsed in a few seconds, giving no time to those inside it to run out.

“First, the fourth floor collapsed. After some time, the entire structure came down,” said Gaurav Prashar, an eyewitness.

The building owner’s family lived on the top floor, the eatery was on the third floor and the second floor had a pantry and ground floor was being used as a store.