PUNE: More than 34 hours after the administrative building at Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation’s waste-to-energy plant in Moshi caved in, rescue teams from the National Disaster Response Force, the Army, fire departments from the civic body and PMRDA continued round-the-clock efforts on Thursday to extricate the eight people still trapped beneath the debris.The three-storey building buckled around 1. 30pm on Wednesday after a massive heap of garbage, about 30 metres away, slammed into the structure. Initially, PCMC officials reported 20 people as trapped but later reports said 23 were under the rubble and garbage.Updated reports said that of these, five were thrown clear after the structure tilted and nine others were rescued alive during Wednesday’s operation. One body was recovered on Thursday morning, and eight people are still trapped.Municipal commissioner Vijay Suryawanshi said the rescue teams from NDRF explored every option, including deploying sniffer dogs to locate the trapped, but they were unable to catch any signs. The next phase of the rescue will be planned by NDRF and the Army.“We have been informed that those still trapped were near the pantry of the building located on the ground floor. Rescue teams have removed the second-floor slab, but another slab must be cleared before they can reach the pantry’s which is at the far end. Efforts are underway to clear the debris, and the operation may continue on Friday,” he said.The rescue operation was slow and hazardous as a huge quantity of garbage had entered the collapsed building and swamped it from three sides, severely restricting access. Officials said the structure had not collapsed completely but remained precariously tilted, raising fears that any disturbance could trigger further buckling.Rescuers were also battling toxic gases emanating from the garbage. External mechanical ventilation systems were deployed to pump fresh air into the structure and flush out hazardous gases before rescue personnel entered. Officials suspect the victim whose body was recovered may have died due to suffocation inside the collapsed building. The deceased was identified as Bhavesh Wani, a resident of Khadki.Among the nine survivors, two sustained serious leg injuries while the others suffered minor injuries. Dr Suhas Kamble of Sainath Hospital told TOI, “Six rescued people were admitted to our hospital, including two with severe leg injuries. One of them is in the ICU, and surgeries are being performed to save the affected limb. The remaining four sustained minor injuries.”Dr Rajendra Wabale, dean of Yashwantrao Chavan Memorial Hospital, told TOI, “One person was brought dead to the hospital around 10.45 am on Thursday. The cause of death was injury to vital organs. Two rescued people with minor injuries were treated and discharged.”In a statement, Antony Waste Handling Limited, which operates the facility for PCMC on a PPP model, said prima facie the incident appeared to have been triggered by unprecedented weather conditions that destabilised the garbage mound.“The region had been experiencing continuous and exceptionally intense rainfall in the preceding period. The plant was undergoing a scheduled maintenance shutdown at the time of the incident, which meant only a limited number of personnel were present on site. Based on the information currently available, no immediate material impact on the company’s operations has been identified,” the company’s statement said.It added that its immediate priority was to support the ongoing rescue and relief operations, provide medical assistance to the injured and extend all support to the families of those affected.NDRF 5th battalion commandant Santosh Bahadur Singh told TOI that the operation had become increasingly complex because the building remained unstable and buried under a massive heap of garbage.“We rescued nine people, but the rest of the operation is far more complex. During one rescue attempt, after we created an entry point, we noticed gaps in the structure widening, indicating that the beams were shifting and the building could collapse at any moment. Our rescuers had to crawl through extremely narrow openings to reach those trapped,” Singh told TOI.The rescuers had to proceed with extreme caution too. “We have to remove the debris in phases. The operation will continue overnight and is likely to extend to Friday. Our priority is not only to rescue those trapped but also to ensure the safety of our men,” he said.Large quantities of garbage must be cleared before rescuers can reach the remaining victims. NDRF teams will use heavy machinery to create safe access points and voids in the collapsed structure. The spaces inside have narrowed considerably, making manual access extremely risky. A horizontal opening was created to rescue one person. But that entry point later became unstable and rescuers cannot go through the same route again. JCBs, which had so far been used only to remove the garbage, would now also be deployed to carefully dismantle portions of the damaged building.Singh said the structure has not collapsed completely but tilted and remains at risk of coming down. There is a nearly 70ft garbage mound around the building that has to be cleared first. Only then can a fresh entry point be created with heavy machinery for the rescue operation to continue in safety.
