Delhi Palam fire: Neighbourhood woke up to flames, screams for help

In a tragic incident in New Delhi, a family was trapped in a burning building, leading to injuries and chaos as neighbors attempted rescue efforts.

NEW DELHI

An ambulance at the site. (Vipin Kumar/HT Photo)

At around 6.40am, Mohit Kumar woke up to go to a government school in the vicinity where he teaches, when he heard screams and shouts for help from his neighbours. Upon stepping out, he saw Sachin Kashyap on his house’s terrace, bruised and with burn injuries on his body and hair, and bleeding from injury spots across his body.

“I sleep in a room on the terrace of my house. That’s why I could hear and respond. I asked Sachin to go to the back of the terrace. I climbed an iron ladder on our terrace to reach our water tanks and rescued him from there,” he said.

“We took him downstairs and made him sit for a while. We asked him what happened and where the rest were. He said he was on the second floor with his mother. The rest were on the third floor. He said he didn’t know anything else. He was quite shaken,” Kumar said.

Sachin was then taken by his family to Safdarjung Hospital, where he is undergoing treatment for 25% burns.

Yash Solanki, a relative of the family, said, “We live in the same locality. I still can’t get the forget how Sachin ran and screamed for help. He was on fire but he managed to jump to the adjacent building and save himself. Others were on the upper floors and could not be saved. They were on third floor but could not reach the terrace due to the smoke. I saw Ashu, Deepika and even Anil screaming ‘bhai bachao…’. We all are in shock.”

Deepak Vasan, who lives in the vicinity and used to work at the Kashyaps’ business establishment, said that he was sleeping in his house when his sister, Usha Vasan, informed him about flames and smoke billowing from the building.

“I went there and saw Anil and Pravesh screaming that they were suffocating. Anil was pleading to save at least his daughter. He said he was throwing her down, but we all stopped him. We threw stones to break the toughened glasses but to no avail. Around the same time, the firemen pulled the main iron shutter to make a passage for themselves. Suddenly, the flames and smoke engulfed the entire building from the front portion. Out of panic, Anil released his daughter and she fell on the ground. He also fell and suffered injuries. Despite best efforts, we all failed to save the family members,” Vasan said.

Yogesh Sharma, a garment trader, who was among the first responders to the fire, alleged that the hydraulic ladder of the fire truck positioned outside the building “malfunctioned” due to which the firemen could not reach the third floor, where nine members of the family were standing on the balcony.

The firefighters, however, said that the ladder did not malfunction, but its maximum reach was 30 feet, or until the second floor.

“We could see the family members crying for help. Some of them wanted to jump from the building. But the firefighters and police personnel stopped them from doing so and assured them that they would safely rescue them. As the ladder failed to reach them, a family member, Anil Kashyap, first released his 1.5-year-old daughter towards the firemen from the balcony. But she fell on the ground and suffered fractures to her legs. Anil also fell on a fire truck and suffered head injuries,” said Sharma.

Sharma said he had returned home after his morning walk when his son, Rupesh Sharma, telephonically informed him about the fire.

“I rushed there and saw some people trapped in the building’s third floor balcony. Some locals and I reached the adjacent building’s terrace and tried to reach the affected building’s roof. However, the flames and smoke were so intense that we failed. A few firemen wearing smoke protective masks also tried but they returned due to the massive fire and smoke. We then assisted the firemen and police personnel in breaking the wall of the building to enter. However, that also did not help,” said Sharma.