Rescue teams recover three more bodies from Canacona building collapse site

Rescue workers have pulled out three more bodies from the debris of a three-storeyed collapsed building in the Canacona area of Goa.

The death toll has been pegged at between 15 and 18 so far, and many are still feared trapped in the under construction apartment block that collapsed on January 4.

A senior police official, O.P. Mishra, said 21 people have been rescued so far.

Deputy Commandant of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), Alok Kumar, said: "Our team has recovered three more bodies. Two bodies were recovered yesterday evening (January 5), and one at 12 a.m. We are engaged in rescue operations. It is difficult to tell the exact figure of the dead as there is no one to inform us about the total number of labourers who were present at the site. We think 15 to 20 people are still trapped under the debris," said Kumar.

Around 50 people were working at the site at the time of the accident and at least a dozen were still trapped under the concrete, according to witness accounts cited in media reports. One report put the number of people trapped as high as 60.

India's booming construction industry is set to be worth a trillion dollars by 2025, which would make it the world's third largest, according to a report by Global Construction Perspectives and Oxford Economics.

Goa police have registered a case - using a process known in India as a "first information report" - against the real estate development firm building the block.