It is truly a sad day when one hears of news and events that entail the loss of young souls; in this case, nine children died, and several others were injured due to the collapse of a wall adjacent to the Hardaul Baba temple in Shahpur, Sagar district, Madhya Pradesh. The kids were between 10 and 15 years old and were in the temple, participating in a religious exercise when the incident happened.
The local administration stated that the wall of the nearby 50-year-old house fell on the children due to heavy rains, which had made the wall frail. The police and public members responded quickly to the incident, and the affected persons were taken to the hospital.
To condole the unfortunate incident, Chief Minister Mohan Yadav has instructed the payment of Rs. 4 lakh cash to each family that lost their beloved. President Droupadi Murmu also expressed her grief literally, and referred to the incident as ‘heart-rending’.
This sad event occurred a day after a similar incident in Rewa district, where a brick wall killed four children. Instances of such infrastructure failures:
The regular occurrence of such calamities in Madhya Pradesh has brought the need for better disaster contingency plans and standard practices into the limelight.
