Deadly mishap: Roof collapse leaves two labourers dead

Poor building plan and construction material blamed for accident

LAHORE: The roof of a three-storey, under-construction house collapsed, killing two labourers while injuring four more people in Madina Colony  on Friday.

A rescue official said two floors of the house had been already constructed and work on the third floor was under way. Construction workers were placing lenter of the third storey when the surrounding walls collapsed under the weight of the concrete.

The debris fell on the roof of the second floor that also caved in. Two labourers were buried under the rubble while four others received injuries.

Imtiaz Ahmad, who lives nearby, said he had returned after offering prayers when he heard a loud rumbling noise. He came out of his house and rushed towards the site, where he heard people screaming. Other neighbours also gathered at the place and started rescue efforts.

Police and rescue teams were also called in and shifted the victims to a nearby hospital, where doctors pronounced two of them dead on arrival. The deceased were identified as Danish and Ramzan. They were related to each other and lived nearby.

Another rescue official said the incident took place because of the poor standard of construction. There were no pillars in the three-storey house and four-inch-wide bricks were used for the walls that could not support the weight of the building.

This is not the first case of roof collapse in Lahore. On September 17, three labourers had died when the roof of a bakery in Chohang collapsed after a cylinder blast.   On September 3, two women were killed in another roof collapse in the Youhanabad area of Nishtar Colony.

On August 21, five people were killed and several others injured near Masjid Wazir Khan when the roof of a house caved in during a wedding ceremony.

In September 2014, eight people had died while eight more were injured when roofs of several houses collapsed due to heavy rains near LDA Plaza. 

Published in The Express Tribune, October 8^th, 2016.