THE FOUR-STOREY Navrang building, which was gutted in a fire last Saturday, collapsed while being demolished on Friday, leading to the death of one laboure
Following the blaze at the building, located on Abdul Rahman Street, the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) had ordered pulling down of the entire structure on August 5. A contractor was subsequently asked to clear the debris of the building and demolish the structure.
Five labourers employed by the contractor were working on demolishing the structure when the entire structure gave way. While the deceased has been identified as 45-year-old Farid Khan, labourer Abdul Shaikh (24) has received a head injury. Both were rushed to JJ hospital, where Khan was declared brought dead on arrival.
MHADA CPRO Vaishali Gadpale said that the day when the building caught fire, the contractor, Mohammad Ibrahim, was told to remove the debris and demolish it. “The work of removing debris was going on when the structure collapsed. It is an accident but we will investigate the matter,” she added while maintaining that Ibrahim is a registered contractor for repairing MHADA cessed buildings.
On August 3, a fire had erupted in a loft in a ground plus four-storey structure. While no one was injured in the incident, it took the fire brigade over 12 hours to completely douse the blaze. The cooling operations were rounded off only after 48 hours of the blaze.
“The fire was confined to the ground floor. However, the smoke had engulfed the entire structure. The smoke was traveling in all directions due to gusty wind while zero visibility was observed in the vicinity of the building, obstructing fire-fighting operation,” P S Rahangdale, chief fire officer, had then said. The fire brigade had found large quantity of combustible materials stored in the building.
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