JOIN US Six people, including two children, were killed when a rain-soaked wall of a building collapsed on two adjacent huts here on Tuesday.
Four members of a family and a couple died in their sleep when the wall came crashing down on their huts between 1:45 am and 2 am, the police said. “The dead included two children,” said V Shivkumar, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Malkajgiri zone).
Rescuers managed to pull out two other children trapped under the rubble.
Teams from the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), CISF, fire department, Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) and the local police were involved in the rescue operation, he said.
The city has been witnessing incessant rain for the last three days. GHMC commissioner M T Krishna Babu said the two families have been living in the huts for the last 10 years. All the bodies have been recovered.
Two NDRF teams comprising 100 personnel, stationed at Hakimpet, reached the spot within 45 minutes and initiated rescue work, said Krishna Babu.
Around 3,000 buildings and structures in the city have been listed as vulnerable and weak. Revenue Minister Raghuveera Reddy, who visited the site, announced financial assistance for the victims. This is the second such tragedy to hit the city this month. On July 8, as many as 18 people were killed after a two-storey hotel collapsed in Secunderabad.