11 killed after building in Delhi crashes: Why ‘pancake’ collapse, narrow lanes hit rescue ops

The building was 200 metres away from his home. “There was a loud boom, and the building disappeared. Nothing was left standing. Not even a pillar,” he added.

Officials called it a ‘pancake collapse’.

An official from the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), which was roped in for rescue efforts, said that in a pancake collapse, the building falls vertically and the debris from multiple floors stacks up one on top of the other.

The fall, akin to a pile of pancakes placed one upon another, makes the chances of survival of anyone inside the building minimal.

“Multiple floors collapsing on top of each other puts extra weight on people trapped inside, which makes the fall even more deadly,” the official said.

The building is reported to have collapsed a little before 3 am on Saturday; rescue efforts continued for over 12 hours, till about 4.30 pm. Among the victims were eight members of the family of a 2020 Delhi riots victim.

The rescue efforts went on for 12 hours (Express/Praveen Khanna)

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) said the building was around 20 years old and was an unauthorised construction.

On what caused the four-storey structure to collapse, the official said the building’s wall column or base could have weakened.

According to neighbours, shops were being constructed on the ground floor of the building. To increase the area of the shop, a pillar supporting the building was demolished.

“They were building another pillar on the back side, so the front area could be used for the shop,” a neighbour claimed.

A Delhi Fire Services (DFS) official said, “The demolished pillar might have been attached to the base of the building; destroying it weakened the connection between the structure and the base. We are still investigating the cause of the collapse.”

The pancake-like debris also hit rescue efforts, said officials, as it was impossible to locate the bodies even using advanced tools.

“We used wall detectors, which can usually see past a layer and check where the bodies are on the other side of the concrete. But because of multiple layers, it couldn’t locate the victims,” an NDRF personnel said.

On what caused the four-storey structure to collapse, the official said the building’s wall column or base could have weakened (Express/Praveen Khanna)

Another reason, police and the NDRF personnel said, was the congested lanes leading to the building. This made it next to impossible for rescue vehicles and machinery to maneuver inside the locality.

At the spot, a man operating an earth-moving machine, involved in removing the rubble, had to re-adjust the vehicle’s position multiple times to avoid hitting the next building.

“The lanes between these houses are not even 70 metres wide. Because of this, we couldn’t get a dumper truck inside to remove the concrete debris,” the NDRF personnel said.

As the bodies were pulled out and carried on stretchers, an ambulance waited to take them to the hospital. “Look how slowly these ambulances have to move for the next 700 metres, till the end of the lane,” said a DFS official present at the site. “In such moments, these things can be a matter of life and death.”

Apart from the Delhi Police, NDRF, and Central Reserve Police Force personnel, locals helped manually remove the debris — they lined up in a row, lifted blocks of concrete in their hands, and passed them to the next person.

Kafil, 21, who lives in the same colony, said he is now scared for his family’s life. “These incidents can happen here. But look at how long it’s taking to get them all out… It’s been 12 hours and people are still stuck.”