Mumbai: Six children died and five others were injured after a five-storey illegal building collapsed in the Behrampada slums at Bandra East on Thursday.
A search-and-rescue operation was underway as locals feared that few more persons were trapped under the debris.
Even as a team of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) joined the rescue operations within an hour of the building collapse, the fire brigade officials admitted that excavating the debris is a mammoth task given that the house is in a narrow alley and surrounded by other residential structures which too stand in precarious positions.
Chief fire officer P. Rahangdale said, “The entire area is a congested one, hence we can not think of slipping big machines into the narrow alley. This has hampered the rescue operations greatly.”
