A spell of heavy rain triggered a dangerous accident in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, on September 6, when a decades-old, crumbling house on the busy Sharda Road suddenly gave way and came crashing down within moments. The sound of the falling structure was loud enough to send a wave of panic through nearby shopkeepers and passers-by, many of whom rushed out of their shops to see what had happened. Tonnes of debris from the building came crashing down directly onto a car parked at the roadside, crushing it badly under the weight of bricks and concrete.
No one was inside the car, averting a bigger tragedy
The damaged vehicle reportedly belongs to Nimesh Gupta, a businessman from Delhi. It was only because nobody happened to be sitting inside the car at that exact moment that a fatal tragedy was averted. A few pedestrians who were walking along the same stretch of road also managed to move away in time and escaped being caught under the falling rubble. Word of the collapse spread quickly, and local residents alerted the police within minutes. A police team reached the spot soon after, called in a JCB machine to clear the mountain of debris blocking the road, and worked to restore traffic movement in the busy market area.
Drain excavation blamed for weakening the foundation
The house that collapsed belonged to Sohan Lal Goyal, a resident of the Delhi Chungi locality in Meerut. Given how badly the structure had deteriorated over time, it had already been vacated well before the collapse. According to the owner, the municipal corporation had been digging a drain along the roadside under the 'CM Grid Yojna' scheme, and the excavation work came dangerously close to the foundation of his house. He alleged that this digging caused the building's walls to tilt out of alignment and develop large, visible cracks. Days of continuous rain that followed only made matters worse, as water seeped further into the already weakened walls, and the combined effect of the shaky foundation and the soaked structure ultimately caused the entire building to cave in.
Owner says he had already warned officials in writing
Sohan Lal Goyal says he had sensed that an accident like this was only a matter of time, which is why he had submitted a written complaint to the District Magistrate, the Senior Superintendent of Police and the municipal corporation well in advance. In that complaint, he had asked for compensation and urged the authorities to take timely preventive measures before the building collapsed on its own, but none of the officials acted on his warning. He also revealed that a shop on the ground floor of the building has been occupied by a tenant for years, and because the shop could not be vacated, he was unable to get the dangerous structure demolished despite knowing the risk it posed. Caught between administrative inaction and the tenant's refusal to vacate, the very disaster he had warned officials about eventually came true.
