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Rescuers call off search for victims in India building collapse
MUMBAI, Sept 24, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – Emergency workers have ended a days-long
search for victims of an apartment block collapse in western India as the
death toll rose to 41, officials said Thursday.
Recovery teams from the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) had rescued
20 survivors from the rubble of the three-storey building in Bhiwandi, near
Mumbai, after the block came crashing down before dawn on Monday.
A senior NDRF official told AFP that emergency workers, aided by sniffer
dogs, also retrieved 41 bodies buried under brick and concrete.
“Operations are over,” NDRF Commandant Anupam Srivastava said.
NDRF director general Satya Narayan Pradhan tweeted Thursday that 10
children were among those killed.
The cause of the incident was not immediately clear, but building collapses
are common during India’s June-September monsoon season, with old and rickety
structures buckling under days of non-stop rain.
BSS/AFP/IJ/1616 hrs