Bengaluru: At least seven people were killed and some feared trapped on Monday after a 20-year-old, two-storeyed building collapsed following a suspected cooking gas cylinder blast near Ejipura area in Bengaluru, the police said.
Eyewitnesses said they heard a noise at around 7am and saw the building reduced to rubble. Personnel of the fire brigade and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), who rushed to the spot, recovered the bodies including that of two women.
Two of the deceased have been identified as Kalavathi (68) and Ravichandran (30). Police said two children, who were rescued from the debris, were out of danger.
Karnataka home minister Ramalinga Reddy, who visited the spot, told reporters that the building belonged to a person called Gunesh. He rented the building to four families, he added.
“Two families were residing in the ground floor while one was on the first floor. Kalavathi and Ravichandran were on the first floor. They died on the spot while two children sustained injuries. They are safe. In the ground floor, members of two families might have been trapped,” said the minister.
Bengaluru Mayor R Sampath Raj said four families were residing in the building
At least 40 firefighters and NDRF personnel were carrying out the rescue operation.
While clearing debris to pull out those trapped in the building, three fire-fighters were injured as a wall fell on them, police said adding they had been shifted to a nearby hospital.
