At least nine people were killed when part of a four-storey residential building collapsed in Bhiwandi, in Maharashtra's Thane district, according to officials. Rescue teams continued searching for people feared trapped under rubble, and authorities had not established the cause.
The Kohinoor Building stood in Balaji Nagar and contained 48 rooms, with 12 on each floor. Fire officials said the Bhiwandi-Nizampur Municipal Corporation had already declared the structure unsafe. Repair work was under way when a section of its B Wing collapsed late Thursday night.
Initial findings indicated that residents heard loud cracking between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. People in the neighborhood helped several families leave after recognizing the danger. Between 11 p.m. and 11:30 p.m., while some residents and workers remained inside and others were still trying to exit, part of the building gave way.
Rescuers recovered nine bodies. Officials feared additional people were buried beneath the debris but had not provided a final count of those missing. Early names reported among the unaccounted-for included Shamji Pal, 46; Santosh Pandey, also known as Munna, 42; and Miraj Sheikh, 35, along with workers whose identities had not been confirmed.
Teams from the Bhiwandi Fire Brigade, National Disaster Response Force and Bhoiwada Police Station responded. The Thane collectorate said trained search dogs were being used. Two ambulances and a mechanical excavator were also deployed as personnel worked through the collapsed material and completed administrative procedures.
The building's prior unsafe designation is an important fact, but it does not by itself prove why the section failed at that time. Officials had not announced whether ongoing repairs, structural deterioration, rain or another factor caused the collapse. The evidence therefore supports scrutiny of the building's known condition without assigning legal or technical responsibility.
Officials placed the disaster within a deadly monsoon period in Thane district. Including the Bhiwandi deaths, at least 27 people had died and 20 had been injured in rain-related incidents in the district during the season, according to figures cited by the source.
Another fatal collapse had occurred weeks earlier in Maharashtra. On July 8, a garbage heap fell onto a building at the Moshi disposal site in Pimpri Chinchwad, killing nine people. That separate event illustrated wider monsoon hazards but had no established causal link to Kohinoor Building.
Search operations in Balaji Nagar remained the immediate priority. A final accounting of occupants, recovery of anyone still trapped and a technical determination of the collapse's cause were outstanding. Officials also had not published the building's repair plan or inspection record.
