3 bldgs come tumbling down

This is the second time in 26 years that the five-storeyed Ganesh Bhavan has collapsed. Nearly forty persons, members of four families, fled the building as soon as the first plaster and mortar began falling at around 6 am. Others were warned by alert neighbours and only four persons failed to make it out of the building.

“I was asleep with my wife and two sons when my neighbour Manubhai Mehta who had gone downstairs to fetch milk, raised an alarm after seeing falling sand and hearing the building crack,” Jayendra Tanduka, one of the residents of the building told Express Newsline

Lakshman Bhonsle who lived on the fourth floor of the ill-fated building felt a slight tremor at around 6 am and went about knocking doors and warning people. “I was sleeping on the first floor when some labourers playing cards in an adjacent room knocked on our doors and asked us to flee,” 66-year-old Manharlal Mehta told Express Newsline. Mehta locked his house and fled with his wife, two sons and a daughter.

According to eyewitnesses, the building sank like a house of cards at around 6.20 am raising a cloud of dust and pulling down two balconies of an adjacent building.

The building housed several offices including the Sahyadri co-operative bank, most of which were buildings tumble downÃ?Continued from page 1locked at the time of the collapse. The building had 22 `galas’ or subsections used by commerical establishments. Only two were used by residents.

Nestling in one of the bylanes in Badamwadi, the 60-year-old Ganesh Bhavan first collapsed while it was being repaired in 1971. Nobody was injured in this incident.

In 1977, the building was subsequently taken over by the Bombay Housing and Area Development Board and rebuilt the building from its foundation, using reinforced cement-concrete slabs. The building was handed over to the residents in 1984.

However, residents alleged that repairs were carried out in a shabby manner. “Everytime you struck a nail, the wall cracked. Plaster always fell, sometimes injuring residents,” an elderly resident said. The unidentified male resident who was injured in the Mint Road building crash was rushed to the St George hospital where he succumbed to his injuries.