Nine bodies were recovered till late night yesterday. Though estimates vary, civic officials supervising rescue operations said at least 30 more people were feared trapped under the debris of the unauthorised five-storied building which caved in at the congested Kisan Nagar area of Wagle Industrial Estate. Fourteen persons, mostly with multiple fractures, are undergoing treatment at the Thane civil hospital.

Though the owner of the building, Bhai Sharad Pawar, is absconding, police today arrested four persons, including his wife, Ujjwala Sharad Pawar. The other three have been identified as Kamlabai Chavan (65), Sulochana Bhalchandra Patil (46) and Karunasagar Parshuram Malwankar (50). Thane Municipal Corporation commissioner, T S Chadrashekhar, who was at the spot till late night, announced the setting up of a one-man committee headed by theDeputy Municipal Commissioner (headquarters) to conduct an inquiry into the collapse.

The survivors, meanwhile, are yet to overcome the shock. Raju Bole had difficulty in even speaking coherently. He lost both his wife and mother in the collapse. According to his neighbour Sujit Pawar (29) who was among the lucky few who escaped in the nick of time even as the flooring under his feet was giving away, said: ``Raju was trying to go back to fetch his mother when his wife Sulabha screamed and asked him to stop. As he turned, she herself rushed into the crumbling building to help her mother-in-law Sumati Suryakant Bole (60) out.''

Though all the neighbours were full of praise for Sulabha's grit and selflessness, Raju was inconsolable. He said in a voice hoarse with crying, ``It would have been better if all of us had died.''

The entire family of Sadanand Babarao Khamkar (35), a head constable attached to the Pydhonie police station, was wiped out in the collapse. While his wife, Shubhangi Khamkar's (30),body was recovered yesterday, today alongwith his own body were retrieved the bodies of his daughters Sony (8) and Pinky (3).

The other bodies recovered today were that of Bhanumati Rajesh Wadhwa (30), Sulabha Bole (28) and Sumati Bole (60).

Local corporator Sangita Patil (SP) said: ``I have personally made so many written complaints (about dangerous buildings) but apart from putting up boards on some of the structures the TMC administration has done little.''

Enquires revealed that the collapses were not a new phenomenon in Kisan Nagar. Aasra, Bairagi House, Gita Niwas, Panchsheel, Mandir Darshan, Laxmi Niwas all collapsed in this area in the last two years. And according to Chandrashekhar potential Sairajs are spread all over Thane.

He said of the total 1,08,000 structures surveyed in the city, 75,000 were illegal and more than 350 of them unfit for occupation. ``This is not a administrative problem but a social problem which needs to be tackled at the high level,'' he said.

``We will soon begin arandom survey to identify all illegal structures in the civic limits,'' he told Express Newsline and added that he would also ask the government to provide Thane with land and finance to fundtransit camps. He said he would demand that the TMC be given a repair board on lines of Mumbai.

The municipal corporation has declared a compensation of Rs 25,000 to the kin of each of those who lost their lives. The announcement was made this afternoon by Mayor Premsingh Rajput, while addressing a gathering at the civic school relief camp.

Rajput also said that the injured will be given Rs 10,000 each. The families evacuated from Sairaj and four other neighbouring buildings will be paid Rs 2000 each.