Dharwad building collapse; death toll mounts to 7
Bengaluru, Mar 20: The death toll in the building collapse at Dharwad in north Karnataka Mounted to seven Wednesday as rescuers pulled out four more bodies from the debris and one person succumbed to injuries at a hospital,police said.
Rescuershad pulled out 55 people from the rubble of the four-storeyed under construction building, which collapsed Tuesday evening at Kumareshwar Nagar in the heart of Dharwad, about 400 km from here.
"Seven People Have lost their lives," Director General of Police (chief of fire and emergency services) M N Reddi told PTI.
Earlier, Hubballi-Dharwad commissioner of police M N Nagaraj said 55peoplehad been rescued.
He expressed apprehension that about 15 to 20 people were trapped inside the rubble.
No arrests have been made, Nagaraj said.
"We have registered a case. Arrests will also follow but our focus at present is on the rescue operations," he added.
Police said rescue operations had been intensified to extricate people believed to be still trapped beneath the debris.
In addition to 10 ambulances and five fire tenders deployed for relief and rescue operations, three teams of the National Disaster Relief Force (NDRF) have been engaged, two from Ghaziabad and one from Bengaluru.
"Two more teams of #NDRF are being airlifted from Ghaziabad in addition to one team which was moved from Bangalore in connection with Dharwad building collapse," the NDRF tweeted earlier in the day.
About 150 police, fire and emergency personnel too have joined the rescue operations.
Former Karnataka minister and Congress leader from the region Vinay Kulkarni had said Tuesday that one of the partners in the building was his relative and that whoever was involved should face action.
An eye-witness had alleged that the building did not have the capacity to bear four storeys whereas an extra floor was being added.
"The builders had used substandard materials," he told reporters Tuesday.
Most of those trapped were migrant labourers from north India who were engaged in laying tiles.
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South African police arrest suspect in mass shooting that killed 12, including 3 children
Johannesburg (AP): A 32-year-old suspect has been arrested in connection with a mass shooting which claimed the lives of 12 people including three children at an unlicensed pub earlier this month, South African police said on Monday.
The man is suspected of being one of the three people who opened fire on patrons in a pub at Saulsville township, west of South Africa's capital Pretoria, killing 12 people including three children aged 3, 12 and 16.
At least 13 people were also injured during the attack, whose motive remains unknown.
According to the police, the suspect was arrested on Sunday while traveling to Botlokwa in Limpopo province, more than 340 km from where the mass shooting took place on Dec 6.
An unlicensed firearm believed to have been used during the attack was recovered from the suspect's vehicle.
“The 32-year-old suspect was intercepted by Limpopo Tracking Team on the R101 Road in Westenburg precinct. During the arrest, the team recovered an unlicensed firearm, a hand gun, believed to have been used in the commission of the multiple murders. The firearm will be taken to the Forensic Science Laboratory for ballistic analysis,” police said in statement.
The suspect was arrested on the same day that another mass shooting at a pub took place in the Bekkersdal township, west of Johannesburg, in which nine people were killed and 10 wounded when unknown gunmen opened fire on patrons.
Police have since launched a search for the suspects.
South Africa has one of the highest homicide rates in the world and recorded more than 26,000 homicides in 2024 — an average of more than 70 a day. Firearms are by far the leading cause of death in homicides.
The country of 62 million people has relatively strict gun ownership laws, but many killings are committed with illegal guns, according to authorities.
According to police, mass shootings at unlicensed bars are becoming a serious problem. Police shut down more than 11,000 illegal taverns between April and September this year and arrested more than 18,000 people for involvement in illegal liquor sales.
