[1]A 65-year-old, retired bank employee and his wife were killed while a woman and her son were rescued after a 50-year- old building that housed seven families collapsed at Triplicane on Wednesday. The deceased couple — Thyagarajan and Manjula Devi — owned the building.
According to the police, the backside of the five-decade-old, much-altered, two-storeyed building on Sungava Street collapsed around 7.45 am.
While the bodies of Thyagarajan and Manjula Devi were retrieved from under the debris, the fire and rescue team managed saved Bharathi and her son Parathasarathy, a computer engineer, after four hours, with the help of sniffer dogs. Bharathi’s husband Amrithalingam (both government employees) had gone out when the building collapsed.
“Luckily, only the back portion of the building collapsed and many inmates were not inside their premises,” police said.
“We heard a loud noise and saw Thyagarajan’s house collapse. The inmates had been talking about cracks in the building for sometime,” recalled Ms Radha, one of the neighbours.
“The tenants had suggested to Thyagarajan to strengthen the walls not built to hold concrete structures added later on,” a fire and rescue official said.
Youth helped the rescue team besides supplying snacks and water to the victims.
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