Goregaon house falls: Weight of gunny bags toppled home

White bandages covered labourer Munna Shaikh's face, right hand and left leg. Shaken, he sat mute on the bench at the entrance of Siddarth Hospital, waiting to hear about his fellow labourers. He is one of the survivors of Sunday's house collapse at Motilal Nagar.

He along with 10 other colleagues reached the site around 9 am from their residence near Bhagat Singh Nagar in Goregaon.

"We were doing work on the second floor after completing the first. We were placing an angle when the ground beneath our feet gave way," said Shaikh.

A couple of days ago, they had finished placing a brick wall between two rooms on the first floor. The owner was rebuilding three houses as one large unit.

The surviving labourers said it seemed the owner wanted to add a storey to the single-storey house, for which more cement and black sand had been called. They further said that the weight of the gunny bags stored on the first floor and at the entrance led to the collapse of the structure.

At the site, rescue officials used gas cutters to go through the rubble laced around metal beams. Triloki Nisar, a construction labourer, said: "My cousin Rajendra Nisar expired in the mishap. He was from Azamgarh in UP. I got a call from his colleague."

Shaikh's mother said he is the only earning member. "He has little children to feed. Who will take care of them? The government needs to compensate us," she said.