May 16 (Punjab Khabarnama) : The death toll in the Mumbai hoarding collapse incident in Ghatkopar jumped to 16 after two more bodies were retrieved from a trapped car under the billboard, an NDRF official told news agency PTI. The official said, “The bodies of a male and a female were retrieved from the car struck below the hoarding in Chheda Nagar area shortly after midnight.”
The search and rescue operations in the case continued for over 55 hours after the massive illegal hoarding in Ghatkopar collapsed on a petrol pump, with dozens left trapped under the debris. So far, 89 persons have been pulled out from under the collapsed hoarding, of whom 16 were declared dead.
The bodies of the two more deceased were located by the NDRF on Wednesday night, but pulled out from a trapped car under the hoarding in the early hours of Thursday. A total of 75 people were left injured in the case, out of which 32 have been discharged from hospitals and 42 are still undergoing treatment.
The rescue teams operations have to be extra careful while cutting through the rubble and the pipes in order to avoid fire incidents, due to the proximity to the petrol pump, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said in its release on Wednesday.
Mumbai hoarding collapse: Top updates
- The death toll in Mumbai hoarding collapse case rose to 16 on Thursday, after two more bodies were pulled out from a car trapped in the rubble. The bodies were located on Wednesday evening but were retrieved from the debris after cutting through pipes.
- A senior NDRF official told PTI that five interconnected girders of the hoarding were being cut into pieces one by one. Once the third girder is removed from the rubble, rescue teams will be able to reach areas that have been inaccessible so far.
- A civic body official said on Wednesday that the reason behind the giant billboard collapsing in Ghatkopar was the weak foundation of the pillar on which it was suspended. He said that due to the weak pillar, the hoarding would have collapsed sooner or later.
- The BMC issued notices to Central Railway and the Western Railway on Wednesday for removal of oversized hoardings erected on their land. All hoardings above the size of 40 x 40 feet need to be taken down, according to the notice.
- After nearly three days of rescue operations, NDRF said that chances of finding survivors from the rubble are now slim. The NDRF also said that the chances of the number of casualties going up cannot be ruled out.