1 student, 1 labourer among dead at Satya Niketan collapse; tense wait for families and friends

NEW DELHI: At least five people were dead by Sunday night after a building collapsed in southwest Delhi’s Satya Niketan, while at least three others remained under treatment at the AIIMS Trauma Centre, where anxious friends and relatives spent the evening searching for those still missing

NEW DELHI: At least five people were dead by Sunday night after a building collapsed in southwest Delhi’s Satya Niketan, while at least three others remained under treatment at the AIIMS Trauma Centre, where anxious friends and relatives spent the evening searching for those still missing.

A labourer at the building also died. (Sanchit Khanna/HT Photo)

At least one student and one labourer were among the deceased, HT has learnt. The dead included Yuvraj, and Abhishek Kumar, a student at Motilal Nehru College. A labourer at the building also died. The identity of the other deceased remained unclear till the time of going to print.

According to an AIIMS statement, the JPN Apex Trauma Centre received 10 patients after the collapse. Four were brought dead, while another patient in critical condition later succumbed to injuries. Three patients were admitted for treatment, one underwent surgery for a limb fracture and another for a severe pelvic injury. One patient with minor injuries was discharged.

At around 9.50pm, an unidentified man aged around 70 was brought to the trauma centre and declared dead, hospital officials said. The hospital’s 10pm update put the toll at five.

But outside the emergency area, the hospital’s numbers were only part of the anxiety. As ambulances arrived carrying victims, students and friends of those feared trapped moved between counters, made frantic calls and checked with hospitals, hoping to locate their friends.

In the waiting area, Shaurya Pratap Singh was repeatedly answering calls from the family of his friend Abhishek Kumar, trying to reassure them while waiting for updates himself.

“Uncle, we are here at the hospital, and we will all be here only. I have seen Abhishek and he is doing alright. Please come fast and come safely,” Singh told Abhishek’s father over the phone.

Singh later told HT that Abhishek, who had come to Delhi from Varanasi, had been admitted due to severe injuries suffered in the collapse.

“While I informed his family immediately, I did not have the heart to tell them how critical he is,” he said.

By the evening, however, Kumar succumbed to his injuries.

For many others, the wait was to find their friends whose whereabouts remained unknown.

“Some of us were on our way to the PG when my friend called from under the rubble and said — ‘Please save me or else I’ll die’. He shared his live location with us. We would have located him, but the police didn’t allow us to go near the building,” said Anmol Yadav, 21, a friend of Neeraj Bawa, one of the first students rescued and taken to the hospital.

Yadav accompanied Bawa in the ambulance. “He was conscious but was barely able to utter a word. His lower body suffered most of the injuries,” he said, adding that Bawa was stable.

Friends of 18-year-old Arpit Jaj, a student of ARSD College and a native of Dewas, Madhya Pradesh, said they had searched several hospitals but could not locate him.

“We have been to multiple hospitals but still not able to find him. His family is calling us and we don’t know what to tell them,” said his friend Krish Kandari.

Divy Upadhyay, a third-year student at Motilal Nehru College, said some students managed to send videos and make calls from inside the building before rescue operations began. “Three students managed to share videos from inside, and a few others were initially able to make calls. But when we arrived at the spot, it was all covered in debris, making it extremely difficult to navigate,” he said.

By late evening, the trauma centre continued to be a place of waiting - for medical updates, for names to be confirmed and, for some families, for the phone call that would finally tell them whether their loved ones had survived.