2 labourers die, 1 injured in wall collapse beside Kalbadevi construction site

Mumbai: The collapse of a wall adjoining an under-construction building in Chira Bazaar, Kalbadevi, at around 2.15 pm on Monday left two workers on the site dead and a third injured. Vinaykumar Nishad, 30, and Ramchandra Sahani, 30, were declared brought dead when taken to GT Hospital, while Sunny Kanojia, 19, suffered injuries on his head and shoulders but was stable.
“The three were digging the soil in the shadow of the wall, and I was taking it from them and shifting it to another spot,” said Amardeep Kumar, a fellow worker on the construction site who was at GT Hospital in the aftermath. “I had gone to the bathroom when I suddenly heard screams.”
When he returned, he found the three buried under the debris of the brick wall, which was around five to seven feet high and 30 feet wide. As per the Mumbai Fire Brigade, the wall was a part of a house gully of the adjoining Gandhi Building that stood between it and the construction site. “The chawl is around 100 years old and the wall was very old, hence it fell,” said Prashant Sarang, ADFO on duty.
Ram Achore, another worker at the site, said that everyone else fled. “Only Amardeep and I were left, and we pulled out the workers,” he said. “Sunny was unconscious but not too hurt. Sahani was alive and trembling when we pulled him out. Nishad had taken the brunt of the collapse and was dead.”
A distraught Kumar said that it did not take them more than 20 minutes to take out the workers. “But by then, the watchmen had shut the main gate to the construction site and wasn’t letting anyone in,” he said. “The bodies lay there for around an hour. Sahani could have been saved.”
A video showed the bodies of Nishad and Sahani lying at the construction site while outsiders yelled at a man. “A man has died, and no ambulance has come yet. You only took them out once we came. Others may still be trapped,” they can be heard saying.
Kiran, a resident of Gandhi Building, recalled hearing the crash of the wall of her house gully in the afternoon. “We were preparing for Janmashtami so our door was closed and we did not pay much attention to it. Later, we saw that the wall had fallen to the other side,” she said.
By the time the fire brigade arrived, 20 minutes after the call to them was made, the bodies had been shifted to GT Hospital in a taxi.
The three were daily wage labourers from UP who had been working on the construction site for under a month. “Ramchandra lived next to us in Wadala with his wife and two sons aged ten and six,” said Ashok Sahani, Ramchandra’s brother-in-law. “His wife is inconsolable. His and Nishad’s body has been taken for a postmortem to the hospital. Sunny also lived in Wadala with people from his village. He has been taken to a private hospital for a CT scan now but he is alright.”
Achore, related to Nishad, said he lived in Kurla with family. “There were hardly any safety provisions at the construction site,” he said. “A few helmets and boots were kept but we never got them. If they were wearing helmets, they could have been saved. Now will their families get any compensation?”
The L T Marg police have registered an FIR against the contractor and other accused under sections 106(1) (causing death by negligence) and 125 (rash or negligent act to endanger life) of the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023.