In the second such incident in the past two months in Tamil Nadu, a building at a bus depot in Porayar in Nagapttinam came crashing down at 5am on Friday, killing eight people and injuring three others. State Transport Minister MR Vijayabhaskar has confirmed to the media that the death toll is at 8.

Of the eight dead, seven were drivers and the other person was a bus conductor. The dead have been identified as Muniyappan, Chandrasekar, Ramalingam, Dhanapal, Prabhakar, Anbarasan, Mannivanna and Balu. The incident happened in the wee hours of Friday, when the transport workers were sleeping at the bus depot. The three injured have been rescued and hospitalised. Minister OS Manian and several local government officials are at the spot, Vijayabhaskar said.

Speaking to Puthiya Thalaimurai, the transport minister said that he met the CM immediately after he got the information and is headed to Nagapattinam, to the spot of the accident.

“The building was very old, that is the information I have been given,” Vijayabhaskar said, when asked why the accident happened. He added that compensation would be given to the families of the dead.

This is a developing story.

This is the second such accident in the past two months. On September 7, five people were killed and 15 injured after the roof of a bus terminal collapsed in Somanur on the outskirts of Coimbatore. The roof of the terminal had weakened and developed cracks due to heavy rains, and abruptly gave in. Part of the collapsed roof fell on a government bus parked at the terminus.