India Building Collapse Kills Scores (Home to About 200 People Reduced to Rubble)

[Turborama]

Source: AP

Rescuers hammered slabs of concrete and dug with their hands Tuesday to pull survivors and bodies from a four-story apartment building that collapsed into a mountain of rubble in a poor New Delhi neighborhood. At least 64 people were killed and scores injured.

The 15-year-old building housing about 200 people - mostly migrant workers and their families - collapsed Monday evening in New Delhi's congested Lalita Park area, where emergency efforts were hampered because vehicles had difficulty navigating its narrow alleyways.

"The scale of the tragedy is unprecedented," New Delhi's top elected official, Sheila Dikshit, said as she toured the site.

An 18-year-old man named Niranjan was walking home from the park when he saw the building come crashing down with his family inside. "The entire building collapsed within seconds as if it was made of sand," he told Press Trust of India. "I ran toward the rubble, but there was nothing I could do." His brother, mother, sister-in-law and niece were all found dead, he said.

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/11/16/world/main7058907.shtml

[JI7]

1. whoever build it should pay

[Larkspur]

2. Does India have any building codes?

Or is it a Libertarian Paradise?

[La Lioness Priyanka]

3. There are codes, upon reading the article it sounds like landlord was building an illegal floor

and there was severe water damage

[Archae]

4. Must have been nano-thermite.

Because tall buildings can't just collapse, can they? :sarcasm: