Three workers were killed and 11 injured when a building under construction collapsed in Kengeri Satellite Town on Monday morning.
The labourers were constructing a three-storey marriage hall at Bandeswamy Math in Kommagatta. The moulding of the second floor’s ceiling was under way when it collapsed. At least 25 workers were on the roof when the accident occurred at around 10 a.m. Some workers fell from the roof while others on the ground floor were trapped under the debris.
Fire and Emergency Services personnel along with advanced rescue vehicles rushed minutes after the collapse. Officials said three bodies had been removed from the debris while a few injured workers were taken to nearby hospitals.
Labourers at the site said over 100 workers from Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka were at work for the last six months. Some 70 workers were on the ground floor mixing cement and doing other work. Some 25 workers were on the roof. Lalchand (30), one of the labourers injured, told The Hindu : “All I remember is that the building collapsed and I was trapped under the debris till some people pulled me out.” The injured were rushed to Rajarajeshwari hospital and Shreya hospital nearby.
The victims have been identified as Venkateshappa (40) from Andhra Pradesh, Shivanna (25) from Gulbarga and Sumit Mondal Khapari (24) from Bihar. Shivanna, who was laying the concrete on the roof, came plummeting down while the other two workers were working on the centring and were trapped underneath the debris.
Police suspect a weak centring led to the collapse. A senior official said the centring was built of wood for a height of 25 feet.
This rendered the building unstable, they said. It was a serious case of negligence on the part of the building authorities, the police added. It is owned by the Eka Bilva Bande Veerashaiva Math.
Cases have been booked under Section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) against contractor Krishnamurthy, centring supervisor Murthy, engineer Jagannath Rao and Sachidananda Swami of the Math. Murthy and Krishnamurthy have been arrested.
