Gurugram: Over 400 residents had to be evacuated from at least 20 four-storey residential buildings of Neelkanth enclave in Gurugram’s Badshahpur area after a retention wall of an adjacent major construction site collapsed followed by soil cave-in due to the consistent rainfall on Thursday, officials said.
The move was necessitated after 10 of the 20 houses developed cracks following collapse of the wall located at their rear portion. Notably, at least 30 feet deep digging work has been carried out at the construction site, and the wall collapse also eroded the soil causing the pilings of the houses to become weak, they said, adding that due to rain there were no worker at the construction site.
The incident took place around 12 noon. A police team reached the spot and alerted senior officers leading to the arrival of officials from district administration, state disaster response force (SDRF), fire department and Municipal Corporation of Manesar (MCM) for safety and rescue works, they added.
Badshahpur sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) Sanjiv Singla, who also rushed to the spot, said that the continuous rainfall triggered the collapse of the retention wall at the construction site where a noted realty firm is building a residential society having multiple highrise towers.
“The rear portion of 10 houses are badly affected from the collapse as the soil giving strength to their base, has also collapsed,” he said.
Officials said engineers of the public works department were roped in who asked the authorities not to allow anyone to stay in the houses, located in the affected portion of the enclave, as some of them also developed minor tilt.
Police registered an FIR against a construction firm engaged in the digging work at the site at Badshahpur police station on Thursday night on allegations of using poor quality of construction materials and equipment which resulted in the wall collapse triggering soil cave-in that has endangered all the houses adjacent to the spot in Sector 69.
Sandeep Kumar, public relations officer of the Gurugram police, the complainant and one of the affected residents said, “Everyone had rushed out to soon realise the wall at the adjacent construction site had collapsed. An investigation has been launched in the incident and necessary action will be taken against the erring firm soon.”
Assistant commissioner of police (Badshahpur) Surender Phogat said that people were evacuated with public announcements asking to immediately vacate their houses. “Afterwards, the entire area along with the damaged houses and the roads were sealed,” he said.
Police, SDRF and fire department officials will remain deployed till further orders in the area for quick action in case any further collapse takes place, he added.
Meanwhile, with the help of the civic body, arrangements were made to shelter evacuated people in rest houses, and hotels. “However, most of them have opted to shift to the locations where their known person or relatives live,” the SDM said.