Mumbai, Aug. 31. (Agencies): Twenty-one people were killed when a 117-year-old condemned building in Bhendi Bazaar collapsed on Thursday morning after two days of torrential rain.

By evening, rescue workers had pulled out 13 survivors from the rubble of the seven-storey building. Six firemen were also injured.

Fire brigade officials said some nine families lived in the Husaini Building in Bhendi Bazar, which itself is 150 years old. Some media reports said it also housed a play school but children had not arrived when the building collapsed at 8.30am.

The building, mostly housing lower-middle class families, was located in the Muslim-dominated Pakmodia Street near the J J Hospital, an area of narrow streets and around 250 old buildings.

”The exact number of trapped people cannot be known immediately,” deputy commissioner of police (Zone 1) Manoj Sharma said.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis visited the spot and announced a solatium of Rs 5 lakh each for the next of kin of the deceased.

The building, which also had six godowns on the ground floor, crumbled at around 8.30am. The disaster management cell of the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai received a call about the collapse at 8.40am.

The collapse is the second in Mumbai in a little over a month. In July, 17 people were killed when a four-storey building crumbled after undergoing suspected unauthorised renovations.

Police had yet to determine what caused the collapse on Thursday, which was again testing the city’s capacity for rescue operations after 14 people were killed by floods from heavy monsoon rains earlier in the week.

”Our priority is to pull out at the earliest those trapped under the rubble,” said Maharashtra Industries Minister Subhash Desai, who is also the guardian minister for Mumbai.

“Once the rescue work gets over, the government will conduct a probe... Strict action will be taken against those found guilty,” he told reporters.

Adjacent buildings were evacuated after the collapse, officials at the site said.

The MCGM rushed its emergency rescue team followed by ambulances, dumpers and earthmovers to the spot. Soon, 90 personnel of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) joined the operations.

Some residents claimed that about 40 people belonging to nine families lived in crammed rooms in the structure, which was declared “unsafe” by the Maharashtra Housing & Area Development Authority (MHADA).

This is the second major building collapse in the city in just over a month, after the crash of a residential complex in suburban Ghatkopar area on July 25, which left 17 people dead.

The Saifee Burhani Upliftment Trust, which is redeveloping the Bhendi Bazar area keeping intact its history and culture, said the building that collapsed had 12 residential and one commercial tenant.

“Of them, the trust had already shifted seven families in 2013-14,” it said in a statement.

”MHADA notices dated March 28 and May 20, 2011, declaring the building dilapidated, were issued along with an offer of transit accommodation to the remaining tenants and occupants,” it said.

(This report was updated at 6.45pm.)