At least two people were feared trapped under debris after a slab of an under-construction house collapsed in the Milan Garden area of Harsh Vihar, northeast Delhi, on Sunday evening.
A Delhi Fire Service (DFS) official said a distress call was received at 6.46 pm, following which six fire tenders were dispatched to the site. Police personnel and rescue teams, including the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), launched search operations to locate those feared trapped beneath the rubble.
The two missing individuals were reportedly the contractor and his father. Rescue operations were underway at the time of reporting.
According to a senior police officer, the building’s ground floor was an old structure, while construction work was being carried out on the first floor. The exact circumstances leading to the collapse were not immediately known.
Police said the property owner had been identified and traced, and legal proceedings had been initiated.
The incident comes amid a series of building collapses in the national capital that have raised concerns over construction safety and enforcement of building regulations.
On October 7, at least four people died when a building collapsed in New Seemapuri, with demolition work at an adjacent structure involving vibrating machinery suspected to have triggered the incident.
Earlier, on September 6, a multi-storey boys’ hostel collapsed, killing seven people, including five Delhi University students and two labourers.
On May 30, another building collapse in south Delhi’s Saidulajab claimed six lives, including those of five doctors and engineers and an eatery owner. Unauthorised construction was suspected to have contributed to both incidents.
