Burari building cave-in: ‘A rumble and a sudden collapse’
Five people, including two minors, were killed, while 12 people were rescued in the building collapse in Burari.
Dinesh Gupta, 55, was at home on Monday evening when he heard a noise that shook the ground beneath him -- a rumble, and then a collapse so loud that it took him a few minutes to gather himself. The building next to his house in Kaushik Enclave, Burari, had collapsed like a pack of cards. “No one had the time to escape... People were stuck under debris. I live in the adjoining building and the debris had reached us too. At first, we couldn’t hear anyone cry or scream because they were all stuck under debris,” said Gupta.
Since Monday evening, multiple teams of Delhi Fire Service (DFS), NDRF and the Delhi Police have doing a rescue operation in Burari, where a four-storey under construction building collapsed. Five people, including two minors, were killed, while 12 people were rescued. DFS chief Atul Garg said that search is still on for more people stuck under the rubble.
Gupta recalled that upon hearing the noise, residents rushed towards the building, shrouded in darkness, in a bid to help those stuck under, while others tried to call police and DFS. Minutes later, help arrived in the form of a police team, which with the help of residents, pulled out four people. Among them was Lalta Prasad, 40, who was employed at the building as a guard, and lived there with his wife, their seven daughters and four-year-old son. His two daughters aged seven and 17 years were killed. Apporv (single name only), a 35-year-old local, said that he arrived at the place of the incident an hour later. “By then, Prasad and some of his family members had been rescued and he was desperately looking for the rest of his children. Later than night, DFS pulled out the bodies of his two daughters... It was a horrifying scene,” he said.
At the time of publication, Prasad’s son was still missing. “As soon as I was pulled out, I started looking for my son. Just minutes before the collapse, he had stepped out of the house... I don’t know where he is. Is he buried under debris? Is he lost? I have already lost my two daughters, I can’t lose him,” Prasad told HT on Tuesday.
Gupta said that around 7.30pm, fire tenders arrived and slithered inside the remains of the building and pulled out more people. Apart from Prasad’s daughter, masons Anil Gupta, 42, Mohammad Sarfaraz, 22, and Mohammad Qadir, 40, were killed.
Sailesh Srishti, a local, said, “When the NDRF arrived, they cordoned off the area, and even put a tape outside neighbouring buildings so that people stay indoors and let the rescuers do their job.”