Pune (Maharashtra) [India], July 10 : Earth movers have been deployed after a building collapsed at Moshi in Pune to clear the debris and rescue trapped individuals.
The incident occurred after a massive mound of waste collapsed onto a three-storey administrative building at the Municipal Corporation's waste-to-energy plant in Moshi following days of heavy rainfall, trapping several people inside and triggering a multi-agency rescue operation.
Satish Gayakwad, a family member of trapped victims, raised concerns, questioning why enough earthmover machines have not been deployed at the site, underlining that there are people trapped beneath the debris with no knowledge whether they are alive or dead by now.
"Given such a critical situation, is this the state of affairs? They cleared a 700-acre hill at Godalwadi in just two days, so why aren't there enough machines here? Is this not a serious situation? Our people are trapped inside, and we don't even know if they are alive or dead. And as for the officials--whose responsibility is this? Neither the municipal officials nor anyone from the company is present here. They aren't sending manpower, and their approach is absolutely terrible," he criticised.
Earlier on Thursday, NDRF teams, along with sniffer dogs, reached the collapse site in the Moshi area of Pimpri Chinchwad to conduct the search and rescue operations to extricate people trapped beneath the debris. Personnel from the Army, Fire Brigade, police and the local administration are also engaged in the operation.
Speaking to ANI, Pimpri-Chinchwad Fire Department Sub Fire Officer Dilip Gaikwad said rescue teams had safely evacuated all survivors who responded to rescuers, while efforts were continuing to locate those who remained unresponsive beneath the debris.
"The problem right now is the debris that has come there due to sliding. That's the biggest issue. Because of that, the building has lifted a bit from the back side. So, we have made a triangular-like duct there by cutting the slab. From there, the operation is ongoing," Gaikwad said.
He said nine people had been rescued alive so far, while three to five others reportedly managed to come out on their own before rescue teams reached the site.
"For now, we had a list of 17 people. Out of those, we've rescued nine. Before our arrival, or by the time we reached, we heard that three to five people had come out on their own. The rest who are trapped inside haven't replied. We tried a lot yesterday for any sound, but no one replied," he said.
Gaikwad said the unstable structure prevented rescue teams from approaching from one side, forcing them to create an access point by cutting through the lifted portion of the building.
"The building has collapsed. We've tried from the side where the building has lifted because rescue operations from the opposite side were risky for the search teams. Now we're using JCBs to remove the debris, which is allowing us to go deeper inside than we could yesterday. We will search the entire building after removing the debris. How long it will take, we can't say, but our operation has been ongoing since yesterday," he said.
The rescue operation is being jointly carried out by the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), the Army, the Fire Brigade, police and the local administration.