Mighty rats bring down three-storey Agra building
Deepak.Lavania@timesgroup.com 16.04.2018
Agra: Thousands of rats, burrowing underground for years, made a three-storey building fall down in Agra on Sunday morning. The incident occurred near Mankameshwar temple, an area which has grocery traders’ establishments which are very old. The rat population of the area, which has always been high, has exploded so much in recent years that the rodents have been burrowing under houses, damaging sewage and pipelines and other infrastructure. The foundations of dozens of houses have been weakened, officials said.
On Saturday evening, after heavy rains, water entered these underground burrows and the owner of the house vacated it along with his family. Hours later, the building collapsed. The entire incident was caught on camera and went viral on social media.
Sudhir Kumar Verma, the owner,Verma said, “My ancestral house was destroyed in seconds. My family and I had a narrow escape. We tried everything possible to get rid of the rats, and stop the damage to the foundations, but nothing worked. After the recent rains and highspeed winds, the walls developed cracks. We knew it was a dangerous situation, but not that the building would collapse like this.”
Agra mayor Naveen Jain said, “Although the house that collapsed was old, it is true that several localities in the old city area have a major rodent problem and foundations of houses have been damaged. Crores of rupees of development works in the last few years have been wasted. I will meet with councilors and officials to work out a problem.”
TUMBLING DOWN: The house collapsed at Kacheri Ghat locality
Deepak.Lavania@timesgroup.com 16.04.2018
Agra: Thousands of rats, burrowing underground for years, made a three-storey building fall down in Agra on Sunday morning. The incident occurred near Mankameshwar temple, an area which has grocery traders’ establishments which are very old. The rat population of the area, which has always been high, has exploded so much in recent years that the rodents have been burrowing under houses, damaging sewage and pipelines and other infrastructure. The foundations of dozens of houses have been weakened, officials said.
On Saturday evening, after heavy rains, water entered these underground burrows and the owner of the house vacated it along with his family. Hours later, the building collapsed. The entire incident was caught on camera and went viral on social media.
Sudhir Kumar Verma, the owner,Verma said, “My ancestral house was destroyed in seconds. My family and I had a narrow escape. We tried everything possible to get rid of the rats, and stop the damage to the foundations, but nothing worked. After the recent rains and highspeed winds, the walls developed cracks. We knew it was a dangerous situation, but not that the building would collapse like this.”
Agra mayor Naveen Jain said, “Although the house that collapsed was old, it is true that several localities in the old city area have a major rodent problem and foundations of houses have been damaged. Crores of rupees of development works in the last few years have been wasted. I will meet with councilors and officials to work out a problem.”
TUMBLING DOWN: The house collapsed at Kacheri Ghat locality
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