JHANG: Two labourers died and nine were injured when the roof of a commercial building in the busy Ayub Chowk collapsed here on Sunday.

Twenty-two labourers were working inside a commercial building whose old concrete roof of the building was being jacked up to raise height of its old walls.

During the risky activity, one of the jacks slipped and the concreted roof fell on the labourers. As a result, two labourers, Amjad (22) and Israr (18), died on the spot while nine sustained injuries. Rescuers were called who started the rescue operation.

They recovered the bodies of both the deceased and rescued 20 other labourers from the building.

Nine of them, who received serious injuries, were shifted to the district headquarters hospital where condition of three labourers was stated to be critical when this report was filed.

This is second such incident in about a week. The roof of another commercial building on the Yousaf Shah Road had collapsed last week and five labourers were injured in the incident.

Published in Dawn, February 20th , 2017