An elderly vegetable seller was killed when a part of the cornice of a dilapidated house fell on him at Ranaghat in Nadia district on Saturday morning.

Satyendranath Kundu, 63, used to sell vegetables every morning sitting under the cornice of the house, which is a part of the Jadunath market in the Ranaghat rail bazar area.

Kundu, a resident of Hijuli under the jurisdiction of Dhantala police station, was preparing to begin the day's business at about 6.30 am when the cornice caved in. Other traders extricated him from under the debris and rushed him to the Ranaghat subdivisional hospital, where a doctor pronounced him dead.

Hospital sources said the victim had suffered head injuries that killed him on the spot.

The local traders blamed the police and the Ranaghat municipality for not taking the initiative to demolish the dilapidated building that had been posing a threat for a long.

"We had urged the municipality authorities to demolish the building which is more than 100 years old. But they paid no heed to our appeal," said a trader.

"Following pressure from us, the civic administration inspected and identified the building as dangerous. But it took no further action to dismantle it or to take any precautionary measure to avert any accident," another trader said.

After Saturday's accident, the civic administration cordoned off the part of the building that posed a greater risk. Municipal chairman Koshaldeb Banerjee, along with an official, visited the spot and assured traders that work to pull down the rundown building would begin on Saturday night.

"I have told the traders to shift their stocks to facilitate the demolition. We will try to complete the demolition at the earliest," said Banerjee.