CHENNAI: A 25-year-old man engaged in the demolition of an old building in Ayanavaram died after a wall collapsed on him on Saturday evening. The deceased was identified as Manikandan, a native of Tiruvannamalai's Vandavasi.

Police said that Manikandan and his co-worker Prabhu were working on demolishing a house in VP Colony extension, where the incident happened around 4.30 pm.

Enquiries revealed that they were demolishing a room on the first floor. When Manikandan struck the wall with a hammer, the structure suddenly gave way and collapsed on him, causing fatal head and facial injuries.

Police said Manikandan had died on the spot.

According to the Ayanavaram police, the house belonged to Venkatalakshmi (46), wife of John Rathinam Samuel, who is employed at a private firm in Pallavaram.

Manikandan and Prabhu had been engaged by a contractor named Murugan to demolish the house and had been staying at the site for the past 10 days, the police said. His body was moved to the Kilpauk Medical College Hospital for postmortem. A case has been registered, and further investigations are under way.