Authorities are scrambling to rescue survivors from the rubble of a three-story building that collapsed in a working-class neighborhood of Mumbai and killed at least 19 people on Thursday morning.
A spokesman for the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai told CNN that the building was 117 years old and had been deemed unsafe years ago.
“The building was served an ‘unsafe to live’ notice in 2013,” said the spokesman, Vijay Khabale-Patil.
“Ten families used to live in the building and some of them had vacated the property recently. So we don’t have an actual count of the missing people.”
Mumbai police spokesman Rashmi Karandikar told CNN that 19 people have been killed, and at least 30 rescued from the debris, while the city’s fire department said 30 people had been rescued.
At least 20 people have been sent to the hospital, according to Deven Bharti, the joint commissioner for law and order of the Mumbai Police.
Monsoon misery
The building collapse comes after heavy rains and flooding in Mumbai this week, which have killed at least five people. Authorities would not say if the collapse was connected to the rainfall.
South Asia has seen a historic amount of rain and flooding this month, the height of monsoon season.
More than 1,200 people have been killed in India and Bangladesh and some 41 million have been affected by flooding, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Nepal has also been hit hard.
Thursday’s building collapse is the second significant one to hit India’s financial hub this summer. More than a dozen people were killed when a five-story building collapsed in the Ghatkopar neighborhood in July.
In May, a wall collapsed at a wedding, killing 24 people.
Deadly infrastructure accidents are not unusual in India. Critics say construction projects often lack proper oversight and safety controls.
