Twenty-three people were killed and 15 others injured when the roof of a shelter at a cremation ground in Ghaziabad, adjoining Delhi, collapsed on Sunday.

The roof build just over two months ago collapsed when several people had taken shelter under it in the rain.

By evening 18 of the dead had been identified. Most of them were relatives gathered for the last rites of Ghaziabad resident Jairam Singh.

Apart from the 23 dead, 15 others were admitted at different hospitals, Ghaziabad (rural) superintendent of police Iraj Raja said.

“We came here to cremate my father and lost two more members of my family”, said Rajesh Kumar, a local resident at MMG Hospital, where his uncle was admitted with serious head injuries.

An eyewitness who was walking towards the shelter when it crashed said: “It fell at once, giving no time to the people to escape from there. The most pathetic thing was that there was no such building six months ago. We used to stand in the open. The construction of building a roof adjacent to a small building was completed only two-and-a-half-months ago.”

V.K. Singh, minister of state for external affairs and Ghaziabad MP, who visited the ground, said, “There is definitely a lapse on someone’s part. We will conduct an impartial probe and can assure the people that the guilty must be punished soon.”

Anita Meshram, divisional commissioner of Meerut, who is heading a two-member inquiry committee to probe the case, told reporters on the spot in the late afternoon, “We are here to ensure that a thorough inquiry is done into every aspect of the incident and expose the guilty people.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, defence minister Rajnath Singh and Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath expressed grief over the deaths.

“I express my condolences to the near and dear ones of those who lost their lives in this accident, and also hope for a quick recovery of the injured,” Modi tweeted in Hindi.

Adityanath announced Rs 2 lakh as financial relief for the families of each person killed.