Around 24 apartments part of the tenements built by the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board in All India Radio street, Ernavur, Chennai collapsed on Monday (December 28). On behalf of the board, a number of flats were constructed in Ernavur near Thiruvottriyur for the victims of the 2004 tsunami and those who lost their houses due to the Ennore expressway expansion. These flats are home to more than 4,000 fishermen and other poor people.
The perimeter wall of this apartment had cracked and remained broken in quite a few places. A few months back, one part of the wall collapsed entirely. The local residents and children have been walking through via the path with the collapsed wall while no efforts were taken to rebuild the same.
No casualties have been reported in the incident so far. People were evacuated from the building this morning as it had developed cracks. People from the adjacent building have also been evacuated as a precautionary measure.
The building was reportedly constructed in 1998.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin expressed regret and announced financial assistance of one lakh rupees to each of the affected 24 families.
“I have instructed for collecting the details of such old buildings so that safety measures could be undertaken to avoid such incidents in the future,” he said in a statement published on social media.
(With inputs from Dinakaran)
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