Jamnagar house collapse toll rises to three

RAJKOT: Body of a third victim was recovered on Saturday from the debris of the house that had collapsed on Friday at Devubha Chowk in Timba Fali locality of old city area in Jamnagar.


The deceased was identified as Mohan Rathod (40). Earlier on Friday, the bodies of labourer Ashok Rathod (30) and house owner Anwar Gandhara (45) were recovered from the debris.

The rescue operations were stopped on Friday evening due to lack of visibility and difficulty in taking heavy equipment near the house that was located in a narrow lane.

On Saturday, the fire officials evacuated five other adjoining houses as these too had got damaged after Gadndhara’s house collapsed on them.

“There was no possibility of an earth movers entering the locality due to narrow lanes. Thus, we evacuated occupants from the adjoining houses and manually broke the debris to extract the body of Mohan,” said K K Bishnoi, Jamnagar chief fire officer.

The 50-year-old house owned by Gandhara was under renovation for the last couple of days. However, while the renovation work was under-way, the house suddenly collapsed. While Gandhar’s family members — his wife and two children — and a labourer were out of the house, Gandhara, Ashok and Mohan got trapped inside and died.