Twelve dead after building collapses in India two years after being declared unsafe

A dilapidated building killed 12 people when it collapsed outside Mumbai, a rescue official said, the second such accident around the Indian financial capital in a week.

Rescuers pulled seven people out of the rubble alive after the three-storey structure crumbled overnight while families were sleeping inside, the official said.

“Rescue operations stopped at 10:20am with 12 bodies being recovered in total,” National Disaster Response Force official Alok Avasthy said.

The building, which crumbled around 2:00am Tuesday, was situated in the Naupada area of Thane city near Mumbai.

“It was a 50-year-old structure that was in a dilapidated state and had been declared unsafe by the government two years back but people still lived there,” Avasthy said.

A family of five were rescued with the help of a sniffer dog, according to the official, who said relief efforts ended after everybody was accounted for.