At Least 52 Dead, 56 Hurt in Collapse of Bombay Tenement

A slum tenement collapsed in this western Indian city while the residents slept early Tuesday, killing at least 52 people and injuring 56, police reported.

“People living on the upper floors were flung down half-asleep on their mattresses. They reached the ground either dead or unconscious,” a witness who lived across the street from the disaster scene said.

The three-story building crumpled in the rain of India’s monsoon season, and hours later, firemen were still searching through the rubble for 25 people, who they feared might be trapped beneath. Those killed included 18 children.

Police said about 250 people lived in the building in a predominantly Muslim neighborhood of central Bombay, with families of 10 or more crowded into each of its 22 rooms. Most of the men were poor laborers.

City officials said that the cause of the collapse has not been determined, but that the tenement’s foundations may have been weakened by vibrations from a printing press and a power loom on the ground floor.

“I could feel the ground trembling when I saw the building falling down,” said another neighborhood resident, Ramesh Jadhav, whose quarters were nearby. “My eyes filled with dust, and I heard people screaming for help.”

People questioned in the area said the building was at least 80 years old and in need of repair. Bombay officials said, however, that city engineers inspected it last week and declared it safe for habitation.

Residents of a similar tenement two buildings away were recently ordered to move out because of the danger of collapse. They refused, saying they had nowhere else to go.