Noida lift crash: Last surviving worker succumbs, death toll 9

Noida, September 23

The last surviving member of a team of construction workers injured in the lift crash at Amrapali Dream Valley in Noida Extension died on Saturday after battling for life for eight days, police officials said.

There were nine workers on the service lift which crashed from the 14th floor of an under-construction tower at the project in the morning of September 15. State-run NBCC is completing the mega housing project started in 2011 by the now-beleaguered Amrapali Group under Supreme Court monitoring.

While four workers had died after the lift crash on September 15 itself, another four succumbed during treatment at the district hospital in Noida the next day, the officials said.

“Mohd Kaif, 20, a native of Meerut district, was admitted to the hospital in an injured condition. He died in the hospital on Saturday. The postmortem is being carried out and legal procedures are underway,” a police spokesperson said.

According to a hospital official, Kaif passed away around 1 am on Saturday and the body has been handed over to his family.

He was on ventilator support since hospitalisation as the body was not supporting respiration while his brain had also stopped working, the official said.

An FIR in connection with the lift crash was lodged at the local Bisrakh police station under IPC sections for negligence with respect to machinery and for culpable homicide not amounting to murder, among other charges.

Four officials of Girdhari Construction private limited, hired by NBCC, have been already arrested by the police, which have prima facie found that the service lift was operated negligently despite rain in the early hours of September 15, according to officials.

A financial assistance of Rs 25 lakh has been extended to the families of the eight dead workers, DM Manish Verma told PTI last week, while the local Greater Noida Authority, the Gautam Buddh Nagar administration and the NBCC have launched separate inquiries into the matter.