The search for survivors at the site of a collapsed block of flats has ended in India’s financial capital of Mumbai with a final death toll of 60.
Rescuers saved 33 people from the building’s wreckage in the two-day search. By yesterday, all 93 people listed as missing had been accounted for and the search was called off, said a local commander of the National Disaster Response Force.
Friday’s collapse of the five-storey building was the third deadly cave-in of a Mumbai structure in six months. The cause is being investigated.
High demand for housing around India’s crowded cities, combined with lax inspections, often result in contractors cutting corners by using substandard materials or adding unauthorised floors.
Emergency crews worked for six hours on Saturday to free the last survivor, a 50-year-old man who had been trapped for more than 30 hours with his leg crushed by part of a wall.
Rescuers lifted up the slab of cement using a compressed-air pressure bag and the man was taken to hospital.
“We were able to save him, but he may lose his leg,” a rescue spokesman said.
The building, which housed workers for Mumbai’s municipal government, was constructed in 1980.
Residents have complained of faulty materials and corruption as the root causes of similar disasters and some neighbours said they even feared about the safety of their own buildings.
In April, at least 72 people died when an illegally constructed building fell.
Two months later, a three-storey structure collapsed, killing at least 10 people, including five children.