Staircase collapses in North Kolkata building, 40 rescued

KOLKATA: About 40 people were trapped for more than an hour and half inside a two-storey dilapidated building in the Amherst Street area on Sunday afternoon after a portion of the staircase collapsed. The fire brigade, KMC’s disaster management team and officials of the civic body’s building department came together for the rescue operation. Luckily, nobody was hurt.
The incident occurred around 3.30pm. About 40 labourers were working at the leather shoe manufacturing unit inside the building at that time. All of them got trapped inside as the debris blocked the exit.

A family of six lives in one of the rooms located below the staircase on the ground floor. The members were anxious since the head of the family, Kartick Chandra Das (69), had suffered a brain stroke and gone into a coma before recovering last October.

All the trapped workers were finally rescued around 5pm and brought out from the building unhurt. Civic body’s demolition squad was working till late in the evening to remove the debris and pull down the remaining portion of the damaged staircase.

The building, which is over 40 years old, was lying in a dilapidated state for long. “It was earlier a single-storey building with asbestos roof. Later, its owner constructed another floor. However, poor maintenance plagued the building,making it unsafe. It was later turned into a show manufacturing unit.