Mysuru: Worker stuck under debris as portion of old building of college collapses during restoration

Mysuru: A portion of the old building of Maharani's Women's Science College on Jhansi Lakshmi Bai (JLB) Road in Mysuru collapsed during the restoration work on Tuesday evening, leaving one worker trapped under the debris.

Personnel of the department of fire and emergency services have taken up rescue operation to clear the debris and rescue the worker.

Police identified one Saddam, 32, a resident of Ghousia Nagar in Mysuru as the worker stuck under the debris.

Chamaraja Constituency MLA K Harish Gowda, MLA Tanveer Sait and a team of officials of district administration led by DC G Lakshmikanth Reddy, Police Commissioner Seema Latkar are overseeing the rescue operation.

DC Reddy said that more than 100 personnel of Fire and Emergency Services department, police department and Mysuru City Corporation are involved in the operation. "They are doing it manually, not involving machinery, with an intention to rescue the worker alive. They have not set any deadline for the operation," he said. The worker is responding to calls, he added.

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah laid foundation stone for the restoration work of the building in November last year. The tender holder began the restoration work four days ago. At least 13 workers were removing the doors and windows on the first floor of the building and ten other workers had come out when the incident took place. The building collapsed when three workers had gone inside to pull out the windows. While two of them were able to run out, Saddam got stuck inside.

After the ceiling of the first floor collapsed, the ceiling of the ground floor also collapsed. Hence the rescue operation has been tedious, said an associate professor of the college, A R Ramesh Babu, who was present at the spot.

The restoration of 108-year-old Maharani's Women's Science College has been taken up at a cost of Rs 54 crore.

The authorities had planned to restore the front portion of the college, the main building which is an heritage structure built in 1917 as it is.

They had also planned to reconstruct U-shaped building (behind the heritage block), constructed later in the original style.

In October 2022, the southwest corner of the U-shaped building behind the front heritage structure had collapsed. Since then classes are being held in three shifts in a new block.