Panic grips city as three century-old buildings collapse due to downpour

Heavy rains caused the collapse of three century-old buildings in Old City areas on Monday. After the incident, panic spread in the area.

These buildings, located in Bagh Wali Gali, Raman Market and Baini Ram Street, were already in a dilapidated state. Fortunately, the incident didn’t cause any injury or loss of lives. It is learnt that the Municipal Corporation had also issued notices to the dangerous buildings before the monsoon season but no proper follow-up seemed to have been done for their demolition.

Sources said the buildings were lying abandoned and no one was staying in the same for a long time. Residents asserted that the old city area had hundreds of unsafe buildings which need to be demolished immediately to prevent such incidents in the future.

Nearby residents rued that it could have proved dangerous for them as the incidents had happened during peak hours. When these incidents occurred, there was not much movement on roads. This is a similar picture every year as in the past also such incidents have occurred during which people got injured.

In a separate incident, a wall near Domoria Bridge collapsed and damaged five parked cars. Area residents said the wall was already in a dilapidated state and car owners were also told to avoid parking of vehicles alongside the wall but to no avail. CCTV cameras also captured the incident.