More than 36 hours after a four-storey building collapsed in North Delhi’s Burari area, four members of a family, including two children, were retrieved alive by a rescue team in the wee hours of Wednesday.

The survivors were identified as Rajesh, his wife Gangotri, and their two minor sons. They were all successfully pulled out from the debris at 3 am, a fire official stated. They said soon after the roof caved in, an opening was formed due to a cylinder where they remained buried all this while, till the rescue team reached out to them.

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The death toll in the building collapse remained 5.

The unfortunate incident took place on Monday evening when the building, at Kaushik Vihar in Burari, spread on 200 square feet collapsed.

The rescue operations are still underway, carried out by the Delhi Police, Delhi Fire Services, District Disaster Management Authority (DDMA), and the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF).

Preliminary investigation into the collapse revealed that a false ceiling work was going on in the building at the time of the fateful incident even as labourers were staying inside along with their families. The fragile structure of the building could not withstand the construction work and hence the collapse.

The police have registered an FIR against a builder, Yogender Bhati, under the relevant sections of BNS including culpable homicide. However, he remained at large as of now, informed a police official.

So far, five people, including two girls, have lost their lives while 16 others have been rescued alive and are undergoing treatment for the injuries they sustained in the incident.