Death toll in Taratala collapse rises to 15; Rescue ops continue after 48 hours

The catastrophic under-construction warehouse and cold storage collapse in Taratala has recorded a grim escalation, with the official death toll rising to 15 victims. Following extensive clearing operations by multi-agency rescue teams, the Kolkata Police headquarters at Lalbazar released a detailed roster accounting for all individuals pulled from the massive structural wreckage. The comprehensive manifest details the identities, ancestral addresses, and present medical classifications of both the deceased individuals and those undergoing intensive treatment.

According to institutional records, all casualties were shifted to the state-run SSKM Hospital (IPGMER) for emergency management and legal procedures. The deceased include local workers as well as migratory laborers hailing from various districts of West Bengal—such as Nadia, North 24 Parganas, and Burdwan—along side workers from Munger in Bihar and Dhanbad in Jharkhand. Out of the 15 fatalities, municipal teams have successfully coordinated the transfer of several bodies, including Krishna Chowdhury and Rohit Chowdhury, back to their respective native homes for final rites, while other victims remain under mortuary preservation at SSKM pending family arrivals.

Simultaneously, the Lalbazar medical update confirmed that 18 injured individuals are currently battling severe trauma inside specialized hospital wings. Most patients have been systematically distributed across the D1 and D2 emergency wards depending on the nature of their structural crush wounds. Notably, critical survivors like Khaleq Sardar are being treated under high-dependency setups within the Trauma Care Unit's Red Zone, while municipal unions continue to monitor the stabilization rates of other admitted laborers.