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Rescue workers save 32 people from collapsed Mumbai building

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ANI Mumbai
Last Updated : Sep 28 2013 | 6:05 PM IST

Rescue workers saved 32 people and recovered 25 bodies from a collapsed five-storeyed apartment block here.

Rescuers worked into the night to pull out survivors and casualties from the concrete rubble.

National Disaster Rapid Force (NDRF) commandant Alok Awasthi, said on Saturday that around 83 to 89 were still in the rubble.

"We have rescued 32 people and recovered 25 bodies and the good news is that we will rescue one more. Our teams are engaged in rescue operations since 3 a.m. in the morning. We are assuming that 83 to 89 people are still trapped in the debris. We have rescued 57 people and there will be around 36 to 40 people in the debris. 144 rescue workers are engaged in the operations and we are working in three shifts," said Awasthi.

Employees of the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, also known as the BMC, were housed in the building.

Rescue workers used six cranes to remove debris. The building was believed to have been about 35-years-old and home to about 20 families.

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The cause of the collapse was not known.

In April, a building collapse killed 72 people in Thane, just outside Mumbai. Officials later said the structure had been built using poor materials and did not have proper approvals.

A shortage of cheap homes has led to a rise in illegal construction by developers who use substandard materials and shoddy methods and then offer cheap rents to low-paid workers.

A rise in property prices in densely populated Mumbai over the past five years has put affordable housing out of reach of tens of thousands of people, many of them migrants who move to the city for work.

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First Published: Sep 28 2013 | 5:58 PM IST

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