New Delhi: Amid heavy rains in Gujarat, four children under the age of five were killed and five others injured after a wall of a defunct factory collapsed on their makeshift tents in an industrial area in Panchmahal district on Thursday, news agency PTI reported.
According to police, the victims’ families, hailing from Madhya Pradesh's Dhar district, migrated to Chandrapura village in Halol taluka to work as labourers at a construction site near an unused chemical factory.
District Superintendent of Police Himanshu Solanki said that the families of construction workers were living in makeshift tents that they had erected adjacent to the boundary wall of the factory.
“The wall suddenly collapsed on these families amid rain. Of the total nine persons injured in the wall collapse, four children under the age of five died on the spot,” he said. Five others, including two women and two children, were shifted to a hospital in Halol.
“Later, one of the injured was shifted to Vadodara for further treatment,” said Solanki.
The deceased kids have been identified as Chiriram Damor (5), Abhishek Bhuriya (4), Gungun Bhuriya (2) and Muskan Bhuriya (5).
Meanwhile, several parts of south Gujarat have received heavy rainfall in the last 36 hours and more showers are expected in the next two days, officials have said.
The downpour threw life out of gear and affected the movement of traffic in Valsad, Surat, Navsari and Tapi districts of south Gujarat as heavy rains resulted in water-logging in low-lying areas as well as closure of some roads in rural parts, they said.
Pardi taluka of Valsad district received 182 mm of rainfall in 36 hours ending at 6 am, according to the officials.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD), in its forecast, predicted that heavy to very heavy rainfall would occur on Friday at isolated places across Gujarat, including Navsari, Valsad, Dahod, Sabarkantha, Mahisagar, Vadodara, Tapi, Bharuch and Junagadh district.
On Saturday, heavy rainfall is very likely at some places of the south Gujarat region.