Greater Noida Building Collapse: The NDRF is using sniffer dogs, sensors and cameras.
Four people have died after a six-storey building collapsed and fell on another building in Greater Noida near Delhi last night. More people including children are feared trapped in the debris. The National Disaster Response Force, the police and the fire brigade are carrying out the rescue operations that have been going on for over 16 hours. A one-year-old baby girl, her parents and her grandmother are among those who were living in the building and are feared trapped.
Four people, including the man who owned the under-construction site, have been arrested.
Eighteen families lived in the four-storey building in the Shah Beri village, according to reports. "We were having dinner when we heard a loud 'dham' sound. We thought it was an earthquake. When we opened the door, we could see only dust everywhere. We rushed out and saw the top floors of the building collapsing," Mintu Dekka, who lived next to the two buildings, told NDTV. His wife used to teach the children in the four-storey building.
While 400 NDRF personnel are involved in the search and rescue efforts, 400 police personnel have been deployed in the area to control the crowd. The agitated locals say though the buildings collapsed at around 8:30 pm, the police reached the spot almost an hour after they were informed.
Bodies of two people were first recovered from the remains of the four-storey building at around 1:15 am. Six hour later, a third body was recovered. A woman is among those who died in the collapse.
The NDRF is using sniffer dogs, sensors and cameras to check if there are people trapped in the debris. Efforts are on to remove the debris with cranes.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has asked the Gautam Budh Nagar district magistrate and the police to monitor relief and rescue activities along with the NDRF team.
The rescue teams are treading cautiously at the site as there is a risk of the debris falling. "This is an unstable collapse. We are working very cautiously here," PK Srivastava, the NDRF officer leading the operation, told NDTV.
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