Pune: Rescue personnel recovered the body of the last person reported missing from the Moshi waste-processing unit collapse near Pune in the early hours of Sunday, pushing the death toll in the tragedy to nine, officials said.
Meanwhile, a senior official associated with the waste-processing plant described the July 8 disaster as an “act of God”, PTI reported.
The three-storey administrative building of a Waste-to-Energy (WTE) plant operated by the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation at Moshi in Pune district gave way after a neighbouring mound of garbage slid onto the structure,
resembling a landslide.
The body of Waman Kasbe, the final person still unaccounted for, was pulled out from the rubble in the early hours of Sunday, officials said, taking the death count to nine. Fourteen others were rescued before the search was finally halted.
On Saturday evening, after meeting the bereaved families, Mahendra Ananthula, Group President of Antony Waste Group, said he was deeply saddened by the fatalities and called the dead and injured “part of our family”.
“This was something like an act of God, a natural calamity… somehow we could not, no one can predict it. The kind of rainfall witnessed over the last four to five days could not have been predicted. Similar incidents have occurred in different parts of the country over the past week,” he said.
He said the company would take care of all medical costs for those injured in the collapse.
Ananthula also announced compensation of Rs 25 lakh for each family that lost a member, to be paid through the company’s own contribution and insurance cover.
He further said one immediate family member of every deceased person would be given a permanent job, while the education expenses of the children of the dead would also be borne by the company.