MS Hotel stood for decades near Sarwate bus stand — one of the most crowded parts of the city.Photo: Pravin Ba... Read More

INDORE: A car crashed into the façade of a three-storey hotel in Indore around 9.17pm on Saturday, bringing it down in seconds. At least nine persons, including two women, are confirmed dead, two critically injured and two dozen still feared trapped.

Police, local residents and passersby dug through the mountain of debris with bare hands in the minutes following the collapse, frantically looking for survivors. Eleven victims were pulled out around 12.30am after heavy machinery was deployed. Seven men and two women were dead and the others are at MY Hospital where their condition is extremely critical, divisional commissioner Sanjay Dubey said.

Chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan tweeted that he was deeply pained by the accident. “We are monitoring the rescue efforts. I pray that everyone survives and those wounded recover soon,” he tweeted.

Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan condoled the deaths. She asked the district administration to provide step up the rescue work and probe the causes of the collapse.

MS Hotel stood for decades near Sarwate bus stand — one of the most crowded parts of the city. Dubey said the car crashed into a weight-bearing pillar of the dilapidated structure, which collapsed like a pack of cards. No one got out.

Till the time of going to press, police and other rescuers had no idea how many guests were in the hotel and how many passersby were sucked into the crumbling building. There were shops, hotels and hawker stalls in the vicinity. Plus, the crowd from the bus-stand and railway station. “We are trying to search for survivors,” DIG Harinarayanachari Mishra told TOI.

Anil, who runs a pan kiosk next to the hotel, was still shaken when TOI spoke to him. “Many students were staying at the hotel. First, a portion of the right side of the hotel collapsed on an auto parts shop and an ATM. Then, all hell broke loose. The whole thing came down,” he said. A 70-year-old, who was at the auto shop, was also pulled out of the debris, even as his family members, who live nearby, were desperately looking for him.

Autorickshaw drivers park at the junction because it is always crowded and they quickly get customers. Many of these autos are feared crushed under the debris. No one could say how many drivers are trapped.

Panic spread in the area as a large plume of dust rose into the night sky. Hundreds of locals rushed to help. Police arrived within 20 minutes and cordoned off the square where roads from the bus-stand and railway station converge. As the crowd swelled, police had to use mild force to keep people at bay.

Senior officials, including DIG Harinarayanchari Mishra and district collector Nishant Warwade, were supervising rescue works on the spot. People climbed atop the mound of debris and used bare hands and household tools to bend or remove iron rods and concrete blocks to search for survivors.

MS Hotel was a dilapidated building, but officials couldn’t say for sure if Indore Municipal Corporation had declared it a dangerous structure.

