Woman, son die in Lucknow building collapse

Lucknow, July 24 (IANS) A 54-year-old woman and her son were killed in a building collapse following heavy downpour in the Uttar Pradesh capital, officials said Tuesday.

Rashmi Bala Srivastava and her 24-year-old son Nikhil were trapped for over four hours under the debris of a double-storey house in the Baba Ki Baghhiya area on the Faizabad Road here after it caved in late Monday.

A rescue operation was launched soon after by a team of police and fire department officials.

The mother-son duo was pulled out from the debris with the help of gas cutters and rushed to hospital where they were pronounced dead.

Bala and seven other families staying in the old and dilapidated building were fighting a legal battle with the landlord for not carrying out maintenance or repair works in the house for a long time, police said.

The woman, a state government employee, was staying along with her son on the ground floor of the building.

The Lucknow Municipal Corporation (LMC) officials said that as many as 100 building in the state capital have been identified as "dangerously weak."

Just before the onset of monsoon this year, residents living in weak structures were served eviction notice by the civic body, but like on many earier occasions they chose to ignore it, an LMC official said.

-- Indo-Asian News Service

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