At least 130 people were injured when the 15-year-old building, where an illegal fifth floor was under construction, came crashing down around 8.15 pm on Monday at Lalita Park in Laxmi Nagar. The families of migrant labourers were believed to be staying in the building.

Police have registered a case of culpable homicide not amounting to murder against building owner Amrit Singh, who is absconding. A senior police official said the case has been registered under Section 304 of the Indian Penal Code.

Singh fled along with his family soon after the four-storey building which had been rented out to the migrant labourers collapsed.

"Singh has absconded and we are looking for him," the police officials said.

"Till now 67 people have been killed in the incident. Nearly 130 are injured and admitted to various hospitals with the major chunk being in LNJP," Delhi Health Minister Kiran Walia said.

A magisterial inquiry has been ordered into the incident, Delhi government officials said.

Meanwhile, Ten-year-old Shibu and his brother Sachi do not know whether to call themselves lucky or not?

The two brothers along with their 7-year-old cousin were playing in the park when the five-storey building collapsed near it here last night leaving all their family members dead.

The children are not ware that their parents are no more and spent the night with her grandmother, who came rushing to the spot after hearing about the news.

"My entire family is gone. My son, daughter-in-law, my husband and two grand daughters are no more. They were all inside the building when it collapsed," 40-year-old Yamuna said as she struggles to make the children eat something.

The three, who were playing hide and seek, when the incident took place, came running towards the building along with many others after hearing a loud noise.

Yamuna, who lives with her husband in a nearby area, said her husband had come to meet his son and his family in the evening.

"He came in the evening and since the children insisted he stayed back. The house in which my son was living had two rooms," she says with tears rolling down her eyes.

Shibu and Sachi have not been told about the death of their parents and sisters, but their grim faces indicated that they had an inkling of what had happened.

"There was nothing when we came," Shibu says as his grandmother tells cameramen not to take shots of her grandsons.

Yamuna says she has not yet gone to the hospital to see the bodies of her family members.

"All have died.... They are in hospital... What do I do now? There is no one to take care of me. How do I bring up these children," Yamuna asks.

The victims have been lodged in a small building, where all one can see is people crying and telling others how the incident took place.

40-year-old Deepali Haldar does not know the fate of her husband, two sons and two daughters.

"I don't think they are alive now. The incident is such. All I could see after coming from my work was just heaps of rubble. Only stones and stones.... nothing was left," she said in a choked voice as neighbours and relatives comfort her.

"I had been out at that time so I escaped. Now I feel why did I go out. If I had been inside the building I would have also died," Haldar, who works as a housemaid, said.

At the Park, where some of the people are now lodged, people were seen distributing breakfast, water and juice to the people who were rescued from the debris.

"No one from the Government came to us and gave something to eat. It is all the neighbours and other people who are doing it. Some of our neighbours got us some food in the morning," Muhammad Hazif, who was one of those rescued, said.

Forty-one bodies have been taken to the Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital (LNJP), 16 to Lal Bahadur Shastri Hospital, six to Hedgewar Hospital and three to Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital.

Rescue workers from the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), the fire department, police, civil defence and locals had worked overnight to remove tons of concrete from the spot and find the trapped people.

The building is suspected to have weakened due to the heavy rains during monsoon when water from the nearby Yamuna flooded the area.

A 250-member disaster management team has been deployed to help in the rescue effort.

Officials said they were unclear about the number of people still trapped in the debris.

Locals said with as many as 60 families living in cramped quarters of the poorly constructed building, it was perhaps a tragedy waiting to happen.

"The entire building collapsed within seconds as if it was made of sand," said Niranjan, 18, who lost his entire family in the incident that has claimed at least 65 lives in east Delhi's Lakshmi Nagar.

Niranjan had gone to the park and was walking home when he saw the building crashing down in front of his eyes.

His brother, mother, sister-in-law and niece were all killed.

"I ran towards the rubble but there was nothing I could do. All of them were found dead by the rescue workers," said the teenager who has been living in Delhi for last five years.

Residents say there were about 60 families, all Bengali, living in the building which also housed a beads manufacturing unit on two floors.

"On the other two floors, there were 12 quarters each. We would pay between Rs 1,500-2,500 for a room," said one of the injured.

The rooms in the building were cramped with narrow passages, much like the congested colony where thin roads made it difficult for heavy vehicles to join the rescue work.

Urban Development Minister A K Walia said authorities are looking into how the building was allowed to come up and prima facie it seems that proximity to the river Yamuna and water-logging were the reasons behind the collapse.

The building had been rented out to migrant labourers and some factories and workshops were being illegally run from there.

Walia said permission for construction and other clearances for the building were the responsibility of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi and the Delhi Development Authority. "Multiplicity of authority is a big problem for Delhi," Walia said.

Delhi government sources said all nearby buildings were being examined and if found weak they would be evacuated.

A high-level meeting of Delhi ministers and senior officials has been convened to take stock of the situation, sources said. Some of the buildings nearby have a similar problem, East Delhi MP Sandeep Dikshit said adding people should be evacuated from those buildings.