110-year-old building collapses in Mumbai

MUMBAI: A huge portion of a 110-year-old five-storeyed building on Dockyard Road in Mumbai came crashing down on Saturday morning. All the residents, however, escaped as they had evacuated the building in time.

Officials said Mumbai Housing and Area Development Board (Mhada)-cessed building Reay Chambers started developing cracks on Friday evening. ‘‘ As soon as we came to know, fire brigade officials reached the spot and started evacuating the residents,’’ said Prakash Patil, assistant municipal commissioner, ‘E’ ward.

However, many residents said although they got out in the evening, they returned a few hours later as they thought everything was all right.

On Saturday, however, chunks of roof and walls started falling off and at 9:30 am parts of the building started coming down, which made them scurry away for safety. Two hours later, a whole wing of the building collapsed.