People living in the Shahberi village in Greater Noida saw a dark dust cloud in the sky on Tuesday evening as they ran out of their houses thinking that it was an earthquake, not realising that two buildings in the area had collapsed.
“We were having food when the earth shook as if due to a quake. We ran out, but we realised that a building had collapsed. We then rushed to help,” Narendra Dubey, a resident, said.
“We called the police, which came after an hour. We walked around the collapsed structures with our mobile phone lights looking to see if anyone needed help. We spotted a man and informed the police,” he said.
At least four persons were killed and several others got trapped under the debris of two residential buildings that collapsed in a village in Greater Noida — one of the fast-developing real estate hubs on the outskirts of Delhi, officials said yesterday.
The rescue work started late on Tuesday night and is continuing. Fear has gripped the people living around the collapsed structures. Many residents are providing drinking water and food to the affected people and offering shelter. A National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) team has been deployed. “Till 2002, the village hardly had any market or connectivity. But as the nearby area developed, the land in the village also started having multi-storeyed buildings,” a villager said.
“The builders focused only on the number of flats and not on roads or sewerage. Most roads remain flooded around the year as there is no drainage in the area,” said Anshul, a businessman living in a nearby building. I shifted to the area about a year ago. We fear for our building now,” he said.
Members of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), along with local police, search for victims after an under construction building collapsed in the village of Shah Beri village in Greater Noida.
