Post rescue, focus shifts to warehouse ‘overloading’

BHIWANDI: The Bhiwandi authorities are probing if the warehouse, run by a private company — MRK Foods Pvt Ltd, which imported branded food products and supplied it to top hotels across the country, was overloaded with cargo weakening the load bearing capacity of the building, leading to its pancake collapse on Saturday. The death toll in the collapse of the building in Vardhaman compund climbed to eight on Monday.

A porter has claimed that he had even warned the company manager against overloading the warehouse, but his plea went unheeded.

While the cause of the building collapse is yet to be determined, officials also suspect that the poor quality of construction material used in the building, which was constructed in 2014, could also be one of the factors for the collapse.

Speaking to HT, Madan Ballal, senior inspector, Narpoli police station, said, “We have taken samples of construction materials from the debris and have sent it to the state forensic laboratory to determine the quality of the materials used.”

Udaybhan Yadav, a porter being treated for leg injuries at IGM hospital, blamed the building collapse on the overloading of the warehouse with tonnes of cargo. Speaking to HT, Yadav said each container has a capacity of 22 tonnes, and approximately 15 to 20 containers had been unloaded at the warehouse in the last 25 days.

“On Saturday, products from one container were completely unloaded and kept in the warehouse. I even warned the manager against storing them in the warehouse as the building might not be able to bear the weight, but he abused me and told me to follow his orders,” alleged Yadav, who has been working with the company for four years. Repeated attempts by HT to reach out to MRK Foods Pvt Ltd at its Bhandup office failed to yield a response.

“The cause of the building collapse could be the heavy load on the first floor. The ground floor columns perhaps could not take weight, leading to a pancake collapse. The columns of the building were smashed. It is also an indication that poor-quality raw material was used,” said an official, who requested anonymity.

Indrapal Patil, who owns the land, had tried to engage a developer to construct the building, but eventually constructed the building himself, officials said.

A pancake collapse refers to a structural collapse where the collapse occurs top down as upper floors settle onto lower floors of a building. The collapsed floors appear like a stack of pancakes and hence, the name. Due to the denseness of the debris in a pancake collapse, rescue experts say the chances of finding survivors 24 hours after the collapse are bleak.

Meanwhile, the National Disaster Relief Force (NDRF) and the Thane Disaster Relief Force (TDRF) called off the rescue operation at the Bhiwandi building collapse site on Monday morning, hours after two more missing people were pulled out around 7.15 am and the final death toll touched eight. 10 others trapped in the debris suffered injuries and are being treated at IGM Hospital.

Adhik Patil, tahsildar, Bhiwandi said when the operation began, based on the information given by residents, 22 people were suspected to be trapped in the debris.

“We had a list of four more people who were missing in the incident but now we traced them and identified them. We appeal to the people to contact us if any of their family members are missing in this tragedy and have also alerted the police if any missing complaints are lodged with them,” he said.

The body of Ashok Kumar Mishra, 32, a porter employed with MRK Foods Pvt Ltd, was one of the two pulled out from the debris on Monday. He was employed with the company for the last one year, and his wife Sheela, who is five months pregnant, and one daughter, Anchal, 5, live in Siddharth Nagar district in Uttar Pradesh.

Mataprasad Mishra, younger brother of the deceased, said he reached the collapse site on Saturday night from Boisar. “Other family members and I have been waiting for the last two days. I gradually lost hope that my brother could be alive as more than 40 hours had passed. The NDRF team finally pulled out my brother’s body at about 7.15am from debris. The body had started to decompose. Now, our family members decided to do the final rites here. My brother’s wife and his children are still in the village in UP.”

The second body pulled out from the debris was Dinesh Tiwari, 34, from Siddharthnagar, UP, who worked in MRK Food Pvt Ltd as a porter. His friends informed his wife who lives in UP. He has two sons and a daughter and is the sole bread earner in the family. His wife is expected to come to Bhiwandi by Tuesday and his remains have been preserved in a mortuary.

The three storeyed building had a warehouse of MRK Foods Pvt Ltd on the ground and first floors, while the second and third floor had 12 rooms each. Male workers, who worked with other employers, lived in most of the rooms and had left for their work when the building collapsed in a heap around 1 pm on Saturday.

Three other families lived on the second floor and four families lived on the third. According to sources, MRK Food Pvt Ltd, headquartered in Devi Dayal Compound in Bhandup west, had leased the warehouse one and half years ago from Indrapal.

Adhik Patil said, “The building is illegally constructed by the owner. Prima facie, he does not have any appropriate permission from the MMRDA (Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority) department.”

“We have arrested owner Indrapal Patil and booked him under sections 304(II) (Culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 337 (Causing hurt by act endangering life or personal safety) 338 (causing grievous hurt by act endangering human life), 427 (Mischief causing damage) 34 (common intention) of Indian Penal Code. The accused was produced before a court in Thane on Monday evening. Further investigations are on,” said Ballal.

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MRK Foods Pvt Ltd is a company based in Bhandup which imports branded food products and supplies it to top hotels and other clients across the country. Set up in 1997, the company specialises in importing products such as Figaro olive oil and pickles from Spain, Lee Kum Kee authentic Chinese sauce from Hong Kong, Splenda and Stevia brand of sweeteners from the US, and Urban truffles from Italy, according to its website.

Dhiraj Dama is the managing director of the company, and it claims to supply to 80% of five-star hotels in Mumbai and 75% outside Mumbai. It counts Hilton, Marriott, Oberoi and Taj Group of Hotels among its clients, and has a large distributor network across the country and has offices in seven cities, namely — Mumbai, Hyderabad, Delhi, Pune, Chennai, Bangalore and Goa — according to its website.