Mumbai: The death toll in the Mumbai hoarding collapse rose to 16, with rescue personnel retrieving the bodies of a retired general manager of Air Traffic Control (ATC) and his wife.
The incident took place in the Ghatkopar area, following which the bodies of the couple were extricated from a car stuck underneath the hoarding shortly after midnight. The victims were identified as ex-GM of ATC Mumbai Manoj Chansoria, 60, and his wife Anita Chansoria, 59, officials confirmed.
Following this, the Mumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) Commissioner and Administrator Bhushan Gagrani said that action will be taken against all unauthorised hoardings.
An official further said that the bodies, which were in a decomposed state, were taken to the nearby civic-run Rajawadi Hospital around 1 am. "We cannot rule out the possibility that there are no more victims at the hoarding collapse site," he added. The whereabouts of Manoj and Anita have not been known since Monday evening when they left for Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh from the ATC guest house in Western Mumbai in a red Tata car.
On Tuesday night, his mobile location was tracked to the petrol pump, on which a giant hoarding of 120 feet by 120 feet collapsed in the Chheda Nagar area during gusty winds on Monday, which also left 75 injured.
An official from the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) earlier said that the rescue team had spotted two bodies in a car trapped below the middle main girder of the five girders of the hoarding the same night. Rescuers crawled to reach the car, but there was no way of retrieving the bodies unless the girder was moved, he added.
Later, the search and rescue teams used gas cutters and other machinery to cut the interconnected girders one by one and pull out the bodies of the couple from the car around midnight on Wednesday.
After learning that Manoj's last mobile location was at the Chheda Nagar petrol pump, family members and friends had been camping at the site, fearing that he and his wife were trapped there. The couple's son, who is settled in the USA, was expected to land here on Wednesday night, Anita's cousin had said on Tuesday.
As per the latest update from the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), the search and rescue operation has been called off at the Ghatkopar hoarding collapse site. (With Agency Inputs)
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