Punjab House Collapse: 1 Labourer Dies, 2 Others Still Trapped

Rupnagar: One of five labourers died after they were trapped under debris following the collapse of a two-storey house in Preet Colony here on Thursday, police said. The incident took place when the labourers were engaged in the process of raising the lintel of the house, they said.

During the rescue operation, three labourers were taken out of the debris and one of them was found dead while the two others were taken to the PGIMER, Chandigarh, said police, adding efforts were still on to bring the two remaining labourers out of the rubble.

Teams of National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), Indo-Tibetan Border Police, Punjab Police and fire brigade were deployed for the rescue operation, they said.

A loud explosion took place when the building caved-in.

House owner Rajinder Kaur said they had built this structure in 1984. They were doing the work of lifting the lintel of the house with the help of jacks.

Deputy Commissioner Preeti Yadav said the first priority of the administration was to safely rescue all the trapped labourers.

An inquiry would be conducted into the incident, she said.

Yadav along with Senior Superintendent of Police Gulneet Khurana was supervising the rescue operation.