Goa, Aug. 30 -- Vasco witnessed a wake-up call on Friday morning when two balconies of the dilapidated Happy Apartment collapsed onto the road of a residential colony. Luckily, no casualties were reported, as traffic was minimal during the Ganesh Chaturthi holiday. A two-wheeler parked in the basement was partially damaged.

The incident comes barely three months after a portion of the slab from the old Bank of Baroda building near Gandhi Market in Margao caved in on May 23, damaging three cars. The back-to-back collapses have heightened fears that Goa is sitting on a ticking time bomb of unsafe buildings, many of which remain occupied despite their crumbling condition.

The four-storey Happy Apartment, long identified as unsafe, gave way...