By IANS
Chennai : Authorities Thursday identified 14 of the bodies of the 27 people killed a day earlier in a building collapse near Tirupur city in Tamil Nadu and handed them over to their kin.
Police sources said many of the bodies taken to the district hospital in Coimbatore and to the government hospital at Tirupur have still not been identified. Some of the bodies are severely mutilated as the wall was made of huge stone blocks and people were crushed under it. Most of the dead were textile unit workers.
The accident took place at 8.00 p.m. at the KPK Dyeing unit building, a garment dying set-up, in Angeripalayam, a small town on the outskirts of the textile hub of Tirupur, 495 km from here.
A government liquor shop was adjoining the compound wall of the building.
The 20-ft tall wall guarded the factory. Next to it was a cinema hall and the place was crowded.
Officials Thursday morning said there must have been at least 60 people in the open-air bar.
The bodies are being released to families after post mortem Thursday morning.
Nearly half a dozen injured people are in hospital.
Police said rescue efforts were on till late Wednesday night to rescue people trapped under the debris. Excavators were pressed into service.
People said the wall collapse was due to hours-long rain Wednesday that the region witnessed. "We heard a loud noise like, thunder, then the roof of the bar collapsed on us," eye-witness Muthuraja said.