A 61-year-old woman died and 18 other residents narrowly escaped after a portion of a 200-year-old dilapidated building collapsed in north Kolkata’s Jorabagan area early Tuesday morning. The incident occurred around 5:30 AM on Brajadulal Street, near Girish Park and Chittaranjan Avenue, following hours of heavy overnight downpours triggered by a low-pressure system over the Bay of Bengal. The relentless rain saturated the structure's aging masonry, causing a large section of the three-storey building to give way.
The deceased was identified as Urmila Sau, a long-time resident who had stepped into the courtyard just as the upper floor and roof caved in. Tonnes of falling bricks and wooden rafters trapped her beneath the rubble. Neighbors who heard the deafening crash rushed out into the narrow lane, initially fearing an earthquake, and immediately began clearing debris with their bare hands while alerting emergency services. Rescue workers eventually pulled the woman out and rushed her to Calcutta Medical College and Hospital, where doctors declared her dead on arrival due to severe crush injuries.
The collapse left 18 other occupants stranded inside the surviving portions of the building, triggering an urgent multi-agency operation. Teams from the West Bengal Fire and Emergency Services, the State Disaster Management Department, and the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) deployed sniffer dogs and sensor equipment to search for anyone trapped inside. Working through narrow alleyways that blocked heavy machinery, rescue personnel used ladder corridors to safely bring down 10 men, 7 women, and 2 children without further injuries.
As a precaution, authorities evacuated the adjoining building at 30 Brajadulal Street and cordoned off the entire zone to prevent further accidents. Local anger quickly surfaced in the neighborhood. The victim's husband, Manoj Sau, shared that a primary load-bearing pillar had been visibly tilting for months and that repeated warnings about the structure's dangerous condition had been ignored while discussions around commercial redevelopment dragged on.
The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) confirmed that the 200-year-old property was officially listed as a dangerous and dilapidated structure. Despite previous notices instructing occupants to vacate or undertake urgent retrofitting, families continued living there due to low rents, limited relocation options, and long-standing tenancy disputes that routinely stall repairs in older Kolkata neighborhoods.
KMC Commissioner Smita Pandey noted that fresh evacuation notices are being issued across all marked unsafe buildings in the city, especially with weather forecasts predicting more heavy rainfall. Prolonged waterlogging severely weakens lime-mortar foundations in century-old buildings, creating an acute hazard during active monsoon spells. The risk was underscored just hours later when another section of an old building crumbled in nearby Posta, though no injuries were reported there.
The incident has renewed focus on the thousands of precarious heritage properties across north and central Kolkata—including Burrabazar, Bowbazar, and Chitpur where outdated rent laws and ownership disputes leave old structures to decay, putting thousands of residents at risk every monsoon.