‘My son was sleeping… was crushed under debris’: 8-year-old killed after portion of house collapses in Delhi’s Nangloi

A critically injured Vansh was taken to Sanjay Gandhi Hospital, where doctors declared him dead on arrival. The injured man has been identified as Sabir. He suffered minor injuries.

The Delhi Fire Services said it received a distress call at 7.12 am and dispatched four fire tenders to the spot. Fire brigade personnel said the balcony of the first floor and the roof of the ground floor of the building had collapsed, trapping two people.

Police said the building was very old, adding that the iron girders supporting its walls had weakened over time. “The walls couldn’t support the weight of the water tank on the terrace, which caused it to collapse. This further weakened the structure, due to which the building’s roof came down,” said a senior police officer. Police said action is being taken against the building’s owner for negligence.

The incident is the latest among similar building collapse cases reported in Delhi so far.

On June 4, a two-storey commercial building undergoing renovation in Rohini’s D-12 Market collapsed, injuring at least one person. On May 17, three people were killed when a wall collapsed at an under-construction basement site, following heavy rainfall, at Arakashan Road in Paharganj.

On April 19, a four-storey residential building collapsed in Mustafabad in Northeast Delhi, killing 11 people, eight of whom were from the same family. The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) had then said that the building was around 20 years old and was an unauthorised construction. Delhi Police sources said some shops were being constructed on the ground floor, which likely caused the structure to weaken.

After the Mustafabad building collapse, MCD initiated a citywide inspection of dangerous buildings. However, by late May, only 37 per cent of the targeted areas had been surveyed.