Warehouse collapse toll rises to 11, rescuers race to bring out those trapped
Times of India | 26 June 2026
Kolkata: The death toll in Wednesday’s collapse of an under-construction warehouse in Taratala rose to 11 after five more bodies were pulled out of the rubble and one critically injured person died in hospital on Thursday. Rescuers feared the toll could rise further as they suspected three more bodies were still under the rubble.
Five persons, including Sambhunath Behera, who had taken the plot on lease and was building the warehouse, were arrested on Thursday on charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
The search, rescue and retrieval operations, including the use of life-locating gadgets, were hampered for a couple of hours in the afternoon by a spell of downpour. Efforts to locate survivors were on till reports last came in late on Thursday.
Additional commissioner of police, crime, Kunal Agarwal, said the absence of an attendance register or a record of workers at the construction site off Hyde Road made it difficult for cops and rescuers to ascertain how many labourers might still be trapped in the debris. Officers at the site said around noon that rescuers suspected three more bodies were lying beneath the rubble, but could not proceed to retrieve them because of heavy rain.
“Had the weather been better, we could have made more progress. Nevertheless, search and rescue operations are continuing,” said a senior NDRF official. More personnel from NDRF, Army, SDRF and Kolkata Police Disaster Management Group joined the operations on Thursday.
Stepping up the search operation, vertical tunnels were drilled into the concrete to reach inaccessible areas. Before the downpour, plastic and tarpaulin sheets were used to cover the tunnels to prevent water from pouring in and drowning possible survivors.
While search operations continued at the collapse site, a seven-member Special Investigation Team (SIT), headed by the deputy commissioner of the detective department of Kolkata Police, arrested five persons on Thursday. They are Sambhunath Behera, lessee of the land where the warehouse was being constructed; Gulzar Hussain, supervisor of Ayan Traders, which was executing the project; Kamal Samanto, the iron structure fabricator; Dibakar Bhandari, a labour supplier; and Abdul Hamid, a broker who had allegedly arranged the sanctioned building plan from Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC).
All five accused were produced in Alipore court and remanded in police custody for 10 days. Police said more arrests are likely. Asgar Hussain, the principal project contractor, is among those named in the FIR.
CM Suvendu Adhikari announced in the assembly that a high-level 10-member committee, headed by additional chief secretary Rajesh Pandey, was constituted to investigate the collaspse. The committee includes additional chief secretary Khalil Ahmed, Kolkata Police commissioner Ajay Nand, KMC commissioner Smita Pandey, principal secretary of fire and emergency services Rajesh Kumar Sinha, director-general of buildings, director-general of fire and emergency services and the chief engineer of public works department.
“Those who think they can escape responsibility should know that no one will be spared,” said Adhikari.
On Thursday, the state govt announced a compensation of Rs 10 lakh for the next of kin of each deceased person and Rs 1 lakh for those injured. The state will bear all expenses of the treatment of the injured, Adhikari said.
Calling the incident “extremely tragic”, PM Narendra Modi announced on X that the families of the deceased would receive a one-time assistance of Rs 2 lakh each and the injured would receive Rs 50,000 each from the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund.
President Droupadi Murmu offered her condolences to the bereaved families.