Hyderabad building collapse: 11 dead as authorities remove debris after 36-hour operation

All the victims were construction workers and their family members who were sleeping when the building crumbled.

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10 Dec 2016, 5:17 am

The death toll from a multi-storey under construction building collapse in Hyderabad has risen to 11 with rescue workers retrieving six bodies on Friday night, officials said on Saturday.

The rescue work was completed in the early hours of Saturday. A woman and a child were pulled out alive from the debris on Friday.

The seven-storey building in Nanakramguda area collapsed on Thursday night and it took nearly 36 hours for the rescue workers to clear the debris.

All the victims were construction workers and their family members who were sleeping in cellar when the building crumbled.

Nine of those killed were from Vijayanagaram district and one from Srikakulam district in Andhra Pradesh. A construction worker from Chhattisgarh was also among the dead.

Those killed have been identified as A N Sambaiah (45), N Paidamma (40), N Gauri (13), K Polinaidu (32), K Lakshmi (26), R Shankar Rao (18), P Polinaidu (35), P Narayanamma (28), P Mohan (3).

Durga Rao from Srikkaulam and Shiva from Chhattisgarh are the other two victims.

A local at the spot told TNM, "The debris has been removed. Most of the crowd is gone. There are just a few more men in uniform who are at the spot."

Telangana government has announced Rs 10 lakh ex-gratia each for the families of the dead.

Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has been making arrangements to transport the bodies of the victims to their villages.

Rekha, a woman from Chhattisgarh, and her four-year-old son Deepak were pulled out alive from the rubble on Friday. They are undergoing treatment in a private hospital.

Municipal Administration Minister K T Rama Rao, who supervised the rescue work, said the police arrested builder Satyanarayana Singh in Kerala.

Police had booked a case of negligence and culpable homicide not amounting to murder against him for constructing the building without permission and in violation of all rules.

The government also suspended a deputy commissioner of GHMC and an assistant town planning officer.

It also constituted a committee headed by IAS officer Navin Mittal to conduct an inquiry and submit a report within 15 days.