Thiruvananthapuram, Thursday 04 February 2010: The unsafe sections of the four-storey tourist home that collapsed near Thampanoor on Monday evening will be demolished.

A directive was issued by Collector Sanjay M. Kaul to the Secretary, City Corporation, on Wednesday on the basis of a report submitted by the Public Works Department.

The PWD team led by the Superintending Engineer, Executive Engineer and the Assistant Executive Engineer found that the “front and the rear sections were in a precarious situation and had to be demolished”. The section of the Udupi Sreenivas-Sreevas Tourist Home on the Hotel Chaithram side had been reported ‘safe’ by the PWD team.

The Collector directed the Corporation Secretary to issue an order to the owner of the tourist home to demolish the ‘unsafe’ sections within 24 hours. Kaul said the Corporation would have to undertake the task if the owner refused to carry out the demolition.

Meanwhile, the bodies of the five persons - Rajendran, Johnson, Thomas, Jesudas and Ravi - who died in the building collapse were handed over to the relatives after post-mortem examination at Medical College Hospital on Wednesday. An immediate assistance of Rs.5,000 was provided to the kin of the deceased.

The body of Sumanth Das, 21, of Assam is kept at the mortuary of the hospital. The body will be flown to Guwahati via Chennai and Kolkata on Friday. Kaul said the government would meet the expense of taking the body of the youth and the flight ticket of his brother, Manoj Das.
Kaul arranged accommodation for Das who had to sleep beneath a tree in the capital on Tuesday night.

The ex gratia announced by the government will be provided to the relatives on completion of the legal formalities. In the case of Sumanth Das, the District Collector said he would write to the Deputy Commissioner of the locality from where the youth hailed.

(News agency)