At least two dead as building collapses in Indian city of Bengaluru

By Aby Jose Koilparambil

BENGALURU, India (Reuters) - At least two people were killed and several more were trapped after an incomplete five-storey building collapsed in India's technology hub of Bengaluru on Wednesday, officials said.

The residential building, which had been under construction for several months, was located in the city's Bellandur neighborhood, home to upscale apartment blocks, hostels and offices of technology companies.

The area, which surrounds a lake of the same name and flanks a major ring road, has experienced a construction boom in recent years.

Rescue officials at the scene said a security guard working at an adjacent building had been killed and that three construction workers remained trapped late on Wednesday.

A police inspector later told Reuters by telephone that a 24-year-old construction worker had also been killed. It was not clear whether he was one of the three trapped workers.

At least four people had been pulled from under the debris.

One of the men rescued, who gave his name as Bishnu, said he was a tiler from the West Bengal region. He said he was working on the fourth floor when the building collapsed sideways.

From a sleepy retirement center known as the "Garden City" in the 1990s, Bengaluru has grown to become a sprawling metropolis of 10 million that houses major offices of many international technology companies.

Rescue crews worked into the night amid the debris, much of which remained surrounded by bamboo scaffolding.

"We pulled out one person whose leg was stuck inside the debris," said Adid Inamdar, a manager at a nearby hotel, who ran through clouds of dust to reach the scene.

"We could only see the back of another person. We removed the concrete blocks above him and he was bleeding profusely. His head was severely damaged."

(Reporting by Aby Jose Koilparambil, Derek Deepak Francis and Robin Paxton in Bengaluru and Aditi Shah in New Delhi; Editing by Toby Chopra and Ted Kerr)

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