MARGAO
A loud sound triggered panic and anxiety at the busy commercial capital near Pimpalkatta on Friday noon after a slab of the Old Bank of Baroda building crashed on three cars parked alongside the road below the building.
Members of the public ran helter-skelter while traders rushed out of their establishments to find out the cause of the loud sound, only to discover that a slab from the building had collapsed onto the parked vehicles. No casualties or injuries to anyone have been reported in the incident.
Normally, fruit vendors, selling pineapples, watermelons, bananas and fruits swarm the place every day.
Incidentally, a small concrete portion of the same building had collapsed around two-and-half years ago, leaving a pedestrian injured and a car damaged.
While the debris lying on the parked vehicles and the busy road is a testimony that all wasn’t well with the building, the same old question may come to haunt the authorities, including the District Disaster Management Authority and the Margao Municipal Council on the structural stability of the building and whether steps were initiated to strengthen/restore the building after the collapse of a concrete portion two-and-half years ago.
A police team comprising of Sub-divisional Police officer, Margao DySP Sidhant Shirodkar and Marago PI Suraj Samant got the road barricaded as a precautionary measure.
Additional Collector, Srinet Kothawale along with Deputy Collector, Ganesh Barve, besides Fire Officer Gill D’Souza, PWD executive Engineer, Velingkar reached the site to take stock of the situation.
Margao MLA Digambar Kamat, who rushed to the spot after being informed by MMC Chief Damu Shirokdar, told Additional Collector, Kothwale to seal the building with immediate effect. The authorities were instructed to immediately write to the Goa College of Engineering to conduct a structural stability test.
The Margao fire brigade team was given the task to break the dangerous portion of the canopy. Gill, however, insisted that the work needs to be carried out with a breaker and gas cutters saying the hanging canopy needs to be first broken and removed, failing which the operation may cause further danger to the building.
Margao MLA spoke to contractor Santosh George and arranged the breaker and told the fire personnel to start the work immediately.
The Additional Collector was told to issue an order to seal the building immediately as the structure poses risk to the occupiers. Kothawale later informed said that Barve has issued detailed instructions to the agencies how to go about the job.
