India: Apartment Block Collapses; 3 Dead, Over Two Dozen Trapped

(Photo : PUNIT PARANJPE/AFP via Getty Images)
Rescuers have pulled out 12 people, including two children, from the rubble of the collapsed apartment block in the northern city of Lucknow. Search and rescue operations continue.

Twelve people, including two children, were rescued from the wreckage of a domestic apartment block that had crumbled in the city of Lucknow in northern India on Tuesday, but more were believed trapped within, according to a local police official.

Director General of Police of Uttar Pradesh, DS Chauhan, informed reporters close to the India apartment collapse that they have rescued 12 persons as of current reporting, including two youngsters, and "there hasn't been a recovery of a dead body."

Authorities estimated that around 24 people were trapped when the five-storey India apartment collapse occurred, according to Reuters.

Images seen on television showed police personnel removing the wreckage in a search for victims among the mounds of brick and concrete.

BREAKING 🇮🇳 : 3 dead after apartment collapse in Lucknow, #India

Residential apartment collapses in India's northern city of Lucknow, more than two dozens feared trapped – local police pic.twitter.com/nAozmg1L9w
— Zaid Ahmd  (@realzaidzayn) January 24, 2023

Read Also: Halfmoon Bay Shooting Update

Apartment Building Collapsed Suddenly

Brajesh Pathak, deputy chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, noted that the building is believed to have "collapsed suddenly." Three corpses have been discovered and taken to a medical facility and the injured were admitted to a public hospital, per India Today.

A tweet from the office of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath says that hospitals have been told to be on high alert.

The India apartment collapse appears to have been caused by the day's earlier earthquake, according to the state's director general of police, per an earlier report.

Tuesday afternoon, around 440 kilometers from Lucknow, a 5.8 magnitude earthquake rocked western Nepal.

The incident occurred just a few weeks after officials in Joshimath, one of India's holiest cities, started evacuating worried inhabitants when hundreds of homes started to develop cracks and sink, per CNA.