(MUMBAI, India) — A building being constructed illegally in a suburb of India's financial capital collapsed into a mound of steel and concrete, killing at least 45 people and injuring more than 50 others, authorities said Friday. The building in the Mumbai suburb of Thane caved in Thursday evening, police said. Rescue workers with sledgehammers, gasoline-powered saws and hydraulic jacks were struggling to break through the tower of rubble in their search for possible survivors. Six bulldozers were brought to the scene. "There may be (a) possibility people have been trapped inside right now," local police commissioner K.P. Raghuvanshi said Friday. More than 20 people remained missing and three floors of the building remained to be searched, said R.S. Rajesh, an official with the National Disaster Response Force who was at the scene. "All the three floors are sandwiched ... so it's is very difficult for us," he said, adding that rescuers were continuing to pull survivors from the wreckage. The dead included at least 11 children, police said. At least four floors of the planned eight-story building had been completed and were occupied. Workers had finished three more floors and were adding the eighth when it collapsed, police Inspector Digamber Jangale said. Some of the dead were construction workers staying in the building as they worked on it, Jangale said. The building did not have the necessary clearances from local authorities, he said. It was not immediately clear what caused the structure to collapse, but Raghuvanshi said the building structure was weak. Police were searching for the builders to arrest them, he said. "'The inquiry is ongoing. We are all busy with the rescue operation; our priority now is to rescue as many as possible," he said. Police with rescue dogs were searching the building, which appeared to have buckled and collapsed upon itself. Rescuers and nearby residents stood on the remains of the roof trying to get to people trapped inside. Residents carried the injured to ambulances and one man carried a small child caked white with dust(http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&blog=19871253&post=79889&subd=timeglobalspin&ref=&feed=1)
Via: TIME GlobalSpin