PUNE: Fifteen people, including four children and two women, were crushed to death in their sleep when a portion of the retaining wall of a residential complex in Pune’s Kondhwa area collapsed on their hutments on Saturday following incessant rain in the city. Two others were injured in the land slip that occured around 1.40am.

All the victims were members of labourers’ families from Katihar district in Bihar. They were residing in a transit camp of a construction site adjacent to the complex. The victims were asleep when the tragedy struck. At least eight hutments/tin sheds were buried under the debris of the five-foot wall. The bodies of the victims would be flown by the state to their native places in Bihar.

Police have arrested Vivek Sunil Agarwal (21) and Vipul Sunil Agarwal (21) of Alcon Landmarks which had built the complex. Six others, three each of Alcon Landmarks and Kanchan Group (which is developing the adjacent site where the labourers died) were booked on charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder and common intention under Sections 304 and 34 of IPC.

The site of the labour camp belongs to developer Pankaj Vohra, and his partners Pankaj Shah and Rashmikant Gandhi, of Kanchan Group. Nayan Shah, who claimed to be a friend of Vohra, said, “Vohra is out of station. He has switched off his cellphone after the incident.”

Fire brigade personnel first started the rescue operation. The Pune Municipal Corporation’s (PMC) staffers and personnel from the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) joined in later. “We recovered 14 bodies from the debris between 2am and 5am. Another body was recovered by the NDRF personnel around 5.30am,” Prakash Gore, the station officer of Kondhwa fire station, told TOI. Two injured persons were rushed to hospital, he added.

A five-member committee will conduct an inquiry to fix responsibility of the accident.

DCP Suhas Bawache told TOI, “The wall of the residential complex was built in 2012 and had weakened. The residents were pursuing with the builder to strengthen it, but nothing happened.”

Fire station officer Gore said, “The wall appeared to be of inferior quality and was weakened due to accumulation of rain water at its base. No support was provided to it from the construction site’s end. The debris simply crashed on the hutments close to the wall.”

Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis, while ordering an inquiry into the accident, announced ex-gratia of Rs 5 lakh to be given to the kin of the deceased. He has also announced Rs 25,000 for medical expenses of the injured.

Bihar CM Nitish Kumar announced an ex gratia of Rs 2 lakh each to the next of the kin of the deceased and Rs 50,000 for the treatment of injured people.

NDRF has given a cheque of Rs 4 lakh to offer financial assistance to the injured victims.



In Video: Pune: At least 17 killed in wall collapse following rains