Noida: Almost 24 hours into the grim search through layers of concrete rubble, a hushed silence fell on Shahberi around 9pm on Wednesday. For a few moments, grief took control, even of the seasoned rescuers, who had just pulled out a baby from under the rubble. The girl, just 18 months old, was dead.The baby was the eighth victim they had been able to reach after a complex search that involved taking sniffer dogs and life-detector devices through a maze of debris — fallen beams, caved-in walls, collapsed roofs, broken concrete baring its fangs and entangled iron rods — at the site of the double building collapse in the Noida Extension village. None of them had survived the tragedy. Iron rods and concrete chunks had pierced some of the bodies while some were discovered sandwiched between slabs of concrete.Relatives of others still missing waited at the site all day, sometimes tearful, sometimes remonstrative, seeking more deployment of personnel and machinery at the spot. More people remain trapped under the debris — the exact number could not be determined — and rescuers said they expected the death toll to rise.Ganga Shankar Dwivedi, the developer of the building under construction that triggered the twin collapse on Tuesday night, was arrested along with three brokers, Sanjeev Kumar, Dinesh and Sonu Pathak. Police said Salim, the developer of the other building which, according to local residents, was inhabited by 7-8 families, was absconding. Noida police chief Ajay Pal Sharma said primary investigation showed the land was registered in the name of Dwivedi. “He roped in other brokers to sell the flats,” he said. Dwivedi and Salim’s aides and others involved in marketing and selling the apartments were among 24 people booked in an FIR filed at Bisrakh police station. All of them have been charged with culpable homicide (not amounting to murder) and other sections of the IPC.Among those killed in the disaster are Shamshad, Shiv Kumar Trivedi and his sister-in-law Priyanka (all in their twenties), Shiv’s mother Raj Kumari Devi (in her sixties), Priyanka’s 18-month-old daughter Pankhuri, and Ranjit (45). Two more men found dead are yet to be identified.While the UP government has ordered a probe, to be headed by the additional DM, initial findings show the use of substandard material and a weak foundation may have been the cause of the collapse. The two six-storey buildings stood next to each other, with a five feet road between them. “It seems one of the floors of the under-construction building sank, leading to the rest of the floors also sinking. The collapse is so severe that roofs are stacked in layers and the walls gone,” said a district administration official. Chief minister Yogi Adityanath has announced a compensation of Rs 2 lakh to families of those dead and Rs 50,000 for those injured.The rescue operation is being conducted by the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), which has deployed 160 personnel at the site. They are being assisted by Greater Noida project engineers and other staff.ADG (Meerut) Prashant Kumar, who was in Shahberi on Wednesday, said the rescue operation would be completed only by Thursday morning. “We are investigating if the developer had received NoC from the concerned Authority. Prima facie, we have found massive irregularities in the construction of the buildings,” Kumar said.At the site of the collapse as afternoon faded into evening, despair began slowly turning into anger. “It’s almost 18 hours but the rescue teams have not managed to trace all the missing. They must work faster to rescue our beloved ones,” said Neha Sehgal, a friend of the Trivedi family, which had moved into an apartment on the fourth floor of the collapsed building just last Saturday. Also present was Ram Kumar, Shiv’s brother and Priyanka’s husband. All four members of the Trivedi family were found dead later.Ranjana, who is from Malda in West Bengal, had also come in search of her husband on Wednesday. He was working as a labourer in the under-construction building, she said. Adding to their frustration was NDRF’s decision to stop using the dog squad. The search and rescue, which started at 11pm on Tuesday with the help of the dog squad, moved to life-detector machines and radars on Wednesday morning. The reason, said officials, was that the dog squad had stopped giving signals of any survivors.“The NDRF team used life detectors and radars as the dog squad gave no signals of any survivors by the first half of Wednesday morning. It’s a complicated exercise due to the pancake style fall of the building, with the other building falling at a tilt on its side,” explained NDRF commandant PK Srivastava. “Since it was a twin building fall with fewer people present during the collapse, there’s a lot of debris. So locating the bodies is taking time,” he added.Deepika Kamboj, a resident of Mayur Vihar, whose husband owns an electronics shop, is a “lucky” survivor. She had invested in the building in Shahberi but was yet to shift into it, planning to do so later this week. “I was preparing to move into the two-bedroom house… My investment is lost and I am shattered,” she said.S K Upadhaya, a Shahberi resident, said private builders had been buying land from farmers at cheap rates and making apartments. The exercise started after the Supreme Court quashed the acquisition of land in the village by the Greater Noida Authority in 2011.CM suspends project managerLucknow: Chief minister Yogi Adityanath ordered the suspension of the project manager and assistant project manager of GNIDA for failing to prevent the illegal construction.He also asked for a special drive to be held to detect unauthorised constructions in Greater Noida and take action against anyone found guilty. “The CM has suspended project manager V P Singh and assistant project manager Akhtar Abbas Zaidi for their failure to prevent the illegal construction and lack of action against the unauthorised activity thereafter. Disciplinary action will be taken against them,” said a senior official.The collapse will be investigated by the divisional commissioner of Meerut. “The Meerut DC has also been asked to take up a drive to identify illegal construction taking place not just in Greater Noida but also around the notified areas of Greater Noida and for action to be taken in each such case,” said an official.

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