Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Building sinks into ground

HYDERABAD: Five persons escaped near certain death, but with minor injuries, after a three-storeyed building sank into the ground in the higher middle-class locality of Kukatpaly township on Wednesday morning.

The newly constructed building was actually an expansion of a three-decade-old MIG quarter in the ninth phase of KPHB Colony. While the house owner lived on the first floor, another couple lived on the second floor and a bachelor rented out the penthouse.

The close shave with death left the inmates as well as the neighbours dazed and shocked. The sinking in of the building raised disturbing questions about the safety of the modified quarters in the bustling locality which is billed as the biggest township in Asia.

The elegant blue-coloured building began tilting and sinking around 11 a.m. Bewildered neighbours who watched the building sink said it initially tilted and then sank in.

The buildings adjacent to it too were damaged as the rubble fell on them. A three-storeyed house behind bore the brunt with railings of its top two floors completely damaged.

K. Subba Rao (53), who lives on the second floor, had moved into the building just 10 days ago. “I was in the bathroom when I heard a huge thump at 11 a.m. I could feel the entire building shaking,” he recalled. As building sank, the door got jammed and he could not push it open.

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