LAHORE: Three members of a family died while seven others were injured, two of them critically, after a building at Samanabad collapsed on Tuesday.

Rescue teams recovered the bodies of Muhammad Sharif, 75, Riffat Bibi, 45, and Nazia, 44, from the debris. Of the seven injured, three were women and a minor girl. They were shifted to hospitals for treatment.

The deputy commissioner and other senior government officers visited the site when they were informed about the scale of the building collapse incident.

The Rescue 1122 took six hours or so to complete the operation and recover the trapped people, witnesses told media persons.

A police official said the building which housed shops on the ground floor and a residence on the upper portion caved in around 9am. Apparently, the incident occurred owing to its dilapidated condition and according to initial information, four to five people were trapped under the debris.

The rescue teams recovered in the first hour four persons with multiple injuries, a spokesperson for the Emergency Service said. He said the teams faced many challenges in executing the operation and heavy drill machines and specialised equipment were used.

District Emergency Officer Shahid Waheed led the operation, he said, adding that the teams intensified the work and recovered seven people alive. They were identified as Shahzaib, 20, Fazal, 21, Asma, 45, Mahnoor, 20, Mariyum, 7, Waqas, 30, and Awais, 20.

He said the rescue experts recovered the bodies of three people during hours-long operation that ended at 5pm. The condition of two of the injured was said to be serious when shifted to the local government hospitals, he said.

The police started investigation into the incident to dig out facts.

Published in Dawn, October 2nd, 2019