A chunk from the roof of a three-storey building in Bowbazar that had earlier developed cracks allegedly because of tunnelling work underground for the East-West Metro collapsed on Sunday afternoon and injured a 59-year-old man.
Pappu Singh, a resident of the building on BB Ganguly Street, suffered multiple injuries and was taken to Medical College Kolkata, police said. He was administered first aid and discharged from the hospital.
The collapse revived memories of the earlier cracks on the building in October 2022, following which residents had to be evacuated.
The Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation Limited (KMRCL), the agency responsible for construction of the East-West Metro, repaired the cracks before the residents were again allowed into the building, said an official of the corporation.
On Sunday, officials and engineers of KMRCL and the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) went to the affected building as the word of the collapse spread.
“There are about 25 families in the building. They were tense and anxious after the collapse. Engineers from KMRCL and KMC inspected the building after the chunk fell. It is an old lime and mortar structure,” said Biswarup De, the KMC councillor from Ward 48.
A source in the KMRC said they had repaired the building the last time after it developed cracks.
“Earthen roof tiles fell on the ground floor passage of a G+2 building on 107 B.B. Ganguly Street. The said building is a century old structure with poor maintenance and is in a dilapidated condition. No complaint has been received from the residents of the building. As a matter of good gesture, urgent safety measures have been taken,” said a source in the KMRC.
While KMRCL built the new railway corridor, Metro Railway is responsible for running trains on the East-West line.
Earlier, a Metro spokesperson said: “Our engineers have already reached the spot and have taken the preventive steps to stop further deterioration. The reason will be analysed and consultants and engineers will examine. Further necessary steps will be taken accordingly”.
In their statement, Kolkata Police described the structure as a “dilapidated building”. It added that the chunk from the roof of the common area had collapsed.
A 2.5km stretch of the 16.6km East-West Metro in Bowbazar has seen four accidents so far.
They were first damaged in the subsidence on August 31, 2019. Cracks appeared in houses for the first time in September 2019 after a tunnel-boring machine hit an aquifer. There were three subsequent reruns — in May and October 2022, and again in September 2024.
Many residents are still living in rented apartments as their homes were demolished and are yet to be rebuilt.
In a meeting with KMRCL officials in August, Calcutta’s mayor Firhad Hakim asked the railways subsidiary to reconstruct the homes within a year. A Metro Railway official had then said they have set 2027 as the deadline to hand over the newly built buildings to their owners.
