Those dead included nine women and 11 children, Thane Civic Corporation sources said today.
Of around 60 injured, 36 have been admitted to various hospitals in Thane district, while five seriously wounded have been shifted to J J Hospital and Sion Hospital in Mumbai.
The seven-storey unauthorised structure, which according to locals had come up in just two months at Shil Phata at Daighar in Thane district, had come down crashing in a heap last evening around 6.30 pm, in one of worst such tragedies in Maharashtra.
Cranes were being used to remove the rubble, floor-by-floor, to trace the survivors with the help of life detector sensors which could pick up signals from possible survivors from 70 metre deep, he said.
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State-of-the-art equipment fitted with thermal cameras were being inserted into the wreckage after making holes to locate survivors and extricate them with gas cutters, Awasthi said.
Awasthi said though he was not an engineer, the poor quality of construction was primarily responsible for the tragedy.
"I am not an engineer or a building expert but poor quality of construction and material, besides non-adherence to construction norms for high-rise building has caused this tragedy," he said.