House falls due to digging next door

Two-storey house falls into large hole dug up for basement.

LAHORE: A house in Sher Shah Colony collapsed as labourers dug for a basement in the plot next door in Chuhng police jurisdiction.

SI Muhammad Afzal said the labourers had stopped digging a few hours before the collapse so no one was injured.

He said that the owner of the house had not approached the police to register a formal complaint yet, indicating that he was likely negotiating with the owner of the plot.

SI Afzal said that Muhammad Sohail, the owner of the house on Main Sher Shah Road, had warned his neighbour, Mian Shaukat, not to dig for a basement. He had told Shaukat that the it would jeopardise his house.

Afzal said that Shaukat brought back the labourers on Sunday while Sohail and his family were away. “When they had dug about six or seven feet deep, cracks started appearing in the walls,” he said. The labourers moved away from the site. Around three hours later, the building started tilting towards the empty plot and collapsed.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 26^th,  2011.