Two dead in Dombivli building collapse

A 50-year-old man and an elderly citizen were killed after a three-storey residential building in Dombivli’s Aayare village partially collapsed on Friday evening.

According to the Kalyan Dombivli Municipal Corporation (KDMC), the building, Adinarayan Krupa, is 50 years old and it is in a very dangerous condition. Two families were believed to be in the building when a portion of it collapsed around 5 pm, officials said. Teams from KDMC and fire brigade along with police reached the spot and rescue operations began.

Sunil Lodiya and Dipti Lodiya, 45, who lived on the second floor, were pulled out from the debris around 8.45 pm. The husband was found dead, the officials said. Later, rescue teams found 70-year-old Arvind Bhatkar, a retired bank employee, dead. Bhatkar lived on the first floor with his wife and son.

Bhausaheb Dangde, municipal commissioner, said, “We had in 2018 issued a notice to the residents. There was a total of 30 families who had vacated but some of them later returned to live here.”

Following complaints that chunks of plaster were falling off, ward officer Sonal Deshmukh and her team again visited the building on Friday and asked the residents to move out, Dangde said.

“But Dipti Lodiya refused to vacate and locked herself in. Bhatkar was bedridden while two of his family members were away. The collapse occurred five minutes after our team left the building,” the commissioner said.

Siddhesh, 35, son of Bhatkar, said, “My mother and I had left home 30 minutes before the incident to look for a rented room so that we could shift there immediately. I rushed here on learning about the collapse. My mother is in a state of shock.”

Mayuri Dande, sister of Dipti Lodiya, said, “I recently shifted to Dombivli from Malkapur. One of my relatives told me about the collapse and I came here.”

Soeb Malik, 20, shares a rented room with five others in an adjacent chawl. “In the morning, a KDMC official appealed to the building residents to vacate their homes. About 10 minutes after we went out of our room, we came to know that the building had collapsed. We immediately returned and found that the debris had fallen all over our room,” Malik, who works as a labourer, said.